The month of a million scarves...

.... ok, just ten. Well, twelve. If you count the one I made for myself and the IOU I gave to my mother.

See, it started like this. I found this SUPER fun and bright yarn. I decided Lily had to have a scarf made in it.

I had decided to crochet dish clothes and scrubbies as friend gifts for Christmas. You know, simple.  Single crochet, quick, I could handle it. I made Lily's scarf in the same pattern, but with the yarn, it turned out STINKING CUTE. (I've stole it twice to wear it myself.)

Then, THEN...

I went on a crochet project rampage on Pinterest. (You can see my board of crochet wonder here.) I fell in love with granny squares. So it had to be done. I needed to make a granny square scarf.

I loved that scarf. It was the same rainbow happy as Lily's scarf, but popping out bright enough to nearly make the eyes bleed. It was probably my favorite gift that I gave this Christmas, despite the fact that I probably won't get to see it very often. (Rachel, you need to come visit meeeee!) 

I felt pretty accomplished. I had made TWO scarves, right? Plus all my dish clothes. Whew. 

Then.. THEN...

My mother, bless her, asked how hard it would be for me make a scarf for each of my nieces and nephews back east. Sure, ok, I figured I could just forget about finals, right? Four more scarves, coming up!

Two boy scarves, two girl scarves, for four adorable kiddos. Whew. Really, for really done this time.

Then... THEN... THEN.... (getting the theme to this story, yet?) 

My husband reminded me that I had promised him a scarf last year. Oops. He even went with me to the yarn store (which by this time Lily won't even go with me because we go every. day. MOM.) and picks out his yarn. Then I have to whip that one out when he's not home because he may have picked out the colors and pattern, but I'm surely not letting him see it until Christmas. 

Then my sister saw his scarf. And wanted one. In the same color as Lily's. Back to the yarn store. She said she wanted it for her birthday, but I was on a mission at that point. I was going to get it made and I was going to have it ready in time for her to open. Took me most of the night, but I did it and forgot to take a picture of it. At that point I didn't care about the dang pictures. Haha.

I also decided to make a scarf for our family Christmas auction. It will make my cousin's lady friend very happy.

I really liked the infinity style of the scarf I made my sister. I mean, duh, it used the granny square stitch. I made one for myself in this super fuzzy happy yarn and it is SO warm. I wear it every day, which is funny because the universe had scarves on the brain and gave me 5 new scarves for Christmas. LOL.

Then...THEN... (just kidding)

I had enough yarn left to make one of those cute flower headbands. Lily likes to wear it and be a model for me. Cute!

I have one other crochet project to share...but I will do it in another post.

This is the happy tale of my million scarves for Christmas. If you want a scarf from me, figure out how to crochet yourself. HA!

Winner winner chicken dinner!

So, my kitchen was in a total revolt yesterday. Of course, it happened because I was in a cooking kind of mood. I had plans for mozzarella chicken, rolls, and no bake cookies. I had a time restraint because husband had to be to work in an hour. It all went straight to hell.

I'm telling ya, one teeny tiny kitchen fire and Husbandy Face (who's a cook in a big kitchen) was up in my cooking business like I had burnt half the house down. 

Was it my fault there was some tiny piece of trapped food that caught flame? No. Who kept her cool and grabbed the baking soda and had it out in about 30 seconds? This lady right here. We're talking about a flame less than two inches high, I'll remind you. Still, he hovered. Which started to get really, really annoying. So I sent him to the store because I "really" wanted a rootbeer. 

While he was gone, I loaded my chicken in the oven, put on my water to boil, and cruised my cookbooks. I had no bake cookies on the brain, but it's always fun to check if there is something else that sounds yummy. Fifteen minutes later when hubs got home, still no water boiling. Uh-oh. I opened the oven, no blast of heat. Crap. It was time to start panicking about why my stove was not working. 

It took some unplugging and plugging back in, a quick google for stove troubleshooting, and a run outside to the breaker box, but I was back in business. I set the timer on my microwave for the chicken, got my water heating up again, and went back to puttering. Husband had about twenty minutes to get to work at this point and he comes into the kitchen. The laundry, including his work clothes, wasn't dry. When the breaker flipped on the stove, it flipped on the dryer too. Oops. So not only did he not have time for a meal, he was going to work in damp clothes.

Oh, and also, my microwave went dead. Gah! 

So despite all the hassle, I got my yummy chicken and pasta done, and it was nom nom nom. If you're looking for quick and (usually) easy, this is a dinner recipe for you. It's like Chicken Parmesan without the breading. Allow me to share the recipe. :)

Mozzarella Chicken

Ingredients: 

Chicken breasts

FRESH (or buffalo, depending on where you live. Same thing, different names.) Mozzarella

One jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce. (One is enough for four large chicken breasts. I suggest Alby's organic sauces. Nom.)

Pasta of your choice. 

You'll want to brown the outsides of the breasts, just 4 or 5 minutes on each side. I salted and peppered them first. Hopefully your stove doesn't decide to hate you and this goes smoothly.

While they are browning, slice your cheese. Yes, this stuff is soft and squishy, so it's hard to slice, but it doesn't have to be pretty.

Once the chicken breasts are browned, put them in a large baking dish and top them with the mozzarella. 

Pour your sauce over all of it, covering the chicken breasts completely. Use the whole jar, because you will use the sauce on top of your pasta once it comes out of the oven.

Throw it in the oven at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes, again depending on the size of your chicken. Mine was giant sized, so it took the full 30. I would just temp it or, cut into one and check it to see if you need more time.

While the chicken is in the oven, boil your water (again, good luck with your stove!) and cook your pasta.

Plate everything, and enjoy...hopefully not by yourself because your husband had to go to work before dinner was done. Ha! I saved his portion in the fridge, which he didn't eat last night when he got home! I think he was worried it wasn't going to taste good after all the madness. His loss, my lunch time gain.

Easy peasy recipe, right? It's delicious too. This would be a good one to take to someone in need of a dinner, or make the night before if you're always short on time like I am. Thanks once again to my mama for coming up with this yumminess.

Hope you enjoy!

I have linked this post to...

Hey, I remember doing those!

Who loves pointless surveys that provide useless personal tidbits? This lady right here.

Thanks to Rach over at Waffles & Cereal for providing me the means to play all nostalgic about the days when I spent hours doing Myspace surveys to keep my eyes open at work.

A is for age: Twenty-seven.

B is for breakfast today: half a bowl of Lucky Charms. Lily stole the other half.

C is for currently craving: a regular bra. I hate nursing bras. Wait, that was probably TMI...awkward. We'll go with a nice, quiet, bubble bath.

D is for dinner tonight: Carino's. My hubster got the hook up for free food, yo.

E is for favorite type of exercise: Playing freeze dance with Lily. She can't contain her wiggles so I always win. ;)

F is for an irrational fear: dirty dish water. If it's turned a different color, has icky food floaties, or feels slimy, I'm not having it.


G is for gross food: Biscuits and gravy. Let's be real, it's sludge for breakfast.

H is for hometown: Idaho Falls, ID.

I is for something important: Education. Or ice cream.

J is for current favorite jam: It's not my usual cup of tea, but that "We are Young" song by Fun. It's snappy and gets stuck in my head.

K is for kids: Love, love, love kids. If I could afford them, I'd have a houseful.

L is for current location: My living room.

M is for the most recent way you spent money: Dog food. That stuff is getting expensive. I wonder if I could make my own dog food?

O is for occupation: student in college / stay at home mama.

P is for pet peeve: Leaving the lights on.

Q is for a quote:

R is for random fact about you: I read 10 books last week. My husband is considering therapy options, as he thinks it's downright freaky that I like to read so much.

S is for favorite healthy snack: avocado slices on crackers.

T is for favorite treat: Ice cream.

U is for something that makes you unique: My dreadlocks just turned three years old on the 27th of July. Since I often pull the dreadlocks card though, I'll give you another one. I can say the alphabet backwards better than I can say it forwards. Result of working in a library once upon a time.

V is for favorite vegetable: It's all about the zucchini.

W is for today’s workout: Bathing two children.

X is for X-rays you’ve had: none that I can recall.

Y is for yesterday’s highlight: Lily's dance class. You can't top that kind of entertainment.

Z is for your time zone: Mountain.

Well that wraps it up! I have to say, it felt pretty good to waste time for a bit. :)

Puppy Love. Sort of.

This is our poor dog right now. It's pretty funny when I forget to be sad for him. See, the thing you have to understand about Tobi is this: he's pretty dumb on a good day. While he was given an adorable face, he's got less brain power than a small voltage battery. We have two dogs actually. Tobi is a Shih Tzu XL... meaning he's about twice the size of a normal Shih Tzu. Seriously. He's bulky. Not fat bulky, just larger than your average adorable quaint Shih Tzu. He likes to escape constantly for his own little pleasure jaunts and let me just say, he's an excellent escape artist. My husband loves this dog who makes rocks look intelligent and it's mutual. Tobi will actually sit with his nose pressed to the crack at the door and wait for Nic to come back from work. He'll then try to jump up on the couch and miss with a nice little back flip for flourish at the end.

Our other dog is Lela. She's half Chihuahua and have Chinese Crested. Chinese Cresteds are mostly hairless. So Lela has the buggy Chihuahua eyes with rhino skin that grows hair in a pattern that roughly resembles a sweater with holes on her body along with fur on her ears, tail, and feet. She's also special. She likes to lick my feet when I lay on the couch despite my repeated attempts to help her understand that touching feet is just. not. cool.

Anyway, Tobi has an eye ulcer. Yes, I thought it sounded weird too. I had to take to poor guy to the vet because his eye was all nasty looking. We get there and the vet tells me that my dog is going to go blind unless they STITCH HIS EYELID SHUT. Yuck. So now I have to give him eye drops three times a day in the tiny little spot they left open which means I have to touch the stitches and then shove pills down his throat.

The things I do for love.