Unoriginal Monday

Despite the negative feelings I have about 'puffed up' content on many of the blogs I visit, I am here today to share something worthy. Worthy of what, I leave up to you. Thus the title of this post, because there isn't going to be anything I did myself in this post. Well, other than possibly view it before you did.

Jim's Pancakes Totally awesome (bees are my FAVORITE!) One of his works was featured in a magazine ... I think AARP. Nope, I am not that old yet, but my mom is. We totally drooled over the whole site. I watched the videos too. Pretty clever, he uses those ketchup bottle things and a lot of ... creative coloring agents. Stale turmeric? BLECH!! I'll just stick with food coloring, thanks.

Penguin Pancakes

I totally copied these guys over at Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons. LOVE it! Check out the whole rest of her blog, it's pretty awesome. This was really fun and easy to make. Here is my version.

Here are the parts in progress. Made the body and head with a bigger blob on bottom, and smaller blob on top. I used pancake mix divided, part with a little cocoa added. I ran out of the lighter colored batter, so this one has all choc. parts. They are supposed to be oval shaped for the wings. Not perfect, they still taste great. I think they look fine as 'organic' shapes too.

Here is the finished penguin.

I had a lot of fun making these. The beak and feet are made of orange sections, and the eyes are whipped cream and mini M&M's. Yummy! The kids were not too hungry, so I cooked up the rest of the batter. We will be having penguins the rest of the week, yay!

In The Garden

I took these photos a few days ago. I love having a garden (but hate weeding)! Just have to show off and brag a little.

When we moved in almost 9 years ago, my mom n dad helped me build this cute little raised railroad tie bed in the back yard. It was a lot of work, because they overloaded their trailer with dirt to fill it up (somebody somewhere in Iowa had a mysterious gash appear in their ditch), and one of the trailer tires popped under the load. My dad chain-sawed 2 ties in half to make the short ends of a rectangle. He had an extra-long drill bit and some spikes that he used to fasten the ties together sort of lincoln-log style (or maybe more like legos, where they overlap). They have one of their own just like it in their back yard, though they covered the corners in metal press plates mom got from her work at the newspaper. At any rate, we covered the bottom over with black silo plastic as a weed barrier and poured in the dirt. Presto! Instant raised garden. I use it almost exclusively as a vegetable patch, with the occasional herb or two thrown in. This year we updated our medicine cabinet. The old one was rusted on the bottom. Instead of throwing it out, I had my husband drill some drainage holes in it, and bolted it to the side of the RR ties.

Abandoned blog

Okay, so I haven't kept anywhere near my goal of posting (at least) once a month. In fact, it's been about half a year since I've posted. A lot of time (just look at the header!), and a lot going on in my life... a baby! Now 10 months old, and the associated aches, pains, and sleeplessness have kept me away. Not to mention a healthy dose of blues stemming more from our underemployment than postpartum. BUT, we are finally back on track, at least temporarily. DH has a new job on 3rd shift, and things are FINALLY starting to look up. A big adjustment for all of us, but my hope is to be able to get on here more often.

So, to get myself inspired and re-engaged in blogging, I visited some other blogs. I have a long list of bookmarks in a folder I call 'browsing for inspiration'. I started with my cousin's blog http://craftynan.com , and visited some of her links, then vistited their links... until I had a very full folder. So... today in honor of getting motivated, I decided to volunteer my two older kids to get involved in the organizing challenge from A bowl full of lemons. We're not officially signed up because the challenge is half over and we're just starting. And let's face it, it's not as high on my priority list as laundry (the washer was out of commission for more than a week - we are drowning in laundry), and I only have limited time when the baby lets me on the computer. That said, who doesn't love a clean house? Here are the pics, one junk drawer for each of us.

Fish Eye Squares

A twist on an old classic. This week's freebie features a traditional pattern - moire-like dots that get larger nearer to the center. A centuries old trick to fool the eye into seeing patterns of light and dark based on how close together and how large the dots are. This flavor however, uses squares rather than dots. Enjoy!

FES