Happy Pre-Thanksgiving Fatty!  Dudes, I’ve been “pinning” like a mad woman. Looks like I may be bringing about five dishes to Thanksgiving, whether I’ve been asked or not (I haven’t- is it bad form to bring food? or just bad form NOT to bring food?). Have you been pinning sides? Cuz I have. In fact, I saw this recipe floating around Pinterest, with captions like, “Perfect for Thanksgiving!”.  I was all, “Awww, Hell to the No!” Whitney Houston style. I’ve got a bit of a bad history with the sprouts, in that I find them disgusting.

But lo and behold, I was in the Trader Joe’s and they had entire stalks of Brussels Sprouts.  I never actually thought about how these tiny cabbages grew. I must admit: I was intrigued. So I went ahead and put one of those puppies in my cart. Colin was all, “Whaaa?” and trying to pick it up and use it as a sword to swat other customers. I put the kibosh on that by stuffing some animal crackers down his gullet.

I came home and prepared them according to the same recipe you’ve seen floating around. I just trimmed each sprout, cut it in half and placed them on a baking sheet, doused them with some olive oil, sprinkled on some (lots) sea salt and placed the whole shebang in a preheated 400 degree oven, turning them over occasionally so they would caramelize evenly. I baked them for about 15-20 minutes, but it’s easy to keep an eye on them to see that they are browning and getting kinda crispy on the outside.

As I was doing this, I was getting the side eye by a certain husband. “Are we eating those? Really?”. I told him he didn’t need to have any, but served them up and guess what? Those little bastards were gone before I could sit down. Literally. Someone whose name rhymes with Case scarfed them down, only stopping every now and then to serve them to a whining despot, who also scarfed them down. There were barely any left for me. It was sad.

And a new side dish was born in our household. So yeah, I’ll go ahead and say it. These would be perfect for Thanksgiving.

Commence drooling.

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Are you madly pinning recipes for Thanksgiving? Anyone want to help me cook approximately 45 side dishes that I absolutely must try that day? Hannans- you want some of this?!?

And….I’m out.

Happy Weekend!

Hi Y’all. I’ve got a confession. I haven’t been cooking much around these parts. You see, I’m a work widow. I’m the woman whose husband calls her pretty much every night at 6:30 and says “Looks like it’s gonna be a late one.” I’d be concerned he’s up to no good, having an affair or some other kind of silly shenanigans men can get up to, but truth be told: his mistress is the U.S. Congress. Yup, just another reason to hate our government.

So I’ve been taking a long hard look at my refrigerator with its piles of pumpkin chili filled tupperware, cheese drawers stuffed to the gills and bread about to go bad thinking, oh no, all this food and nowhere to go. No one to feed, even. But then I remembered this delicioso image I spotted on Pinterest:

“The Osceola” (Sloppy Joe Stuffed Grilled Cheese) 

That is just about the most awesomest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. And I want to eat it right off the screen. But instead, I put my good old noggin to use and scratched up a little leftover grilled cheese goodness. Behold the “Pumpkin Chili Stuffed Grilled Cheese”.

Yup, just take some yummy Colby/Swiss Cheese and top it off with a little pumpkin chili. Grill and serve. Want a crust similar to what you see above?  Poke holes in your bread, load that puppy with cheese (lots and lots and lots of cheese) and grill. The cheese will seep out and create a little cheese crust.

This ain’t your mother’s leftovers…..

Say what you will Nordstrom, but around these parts, I love me some Christmas in November. Hell, I was excited back in October. I don’t believe in “celebrating one holiday at a time”. Especially since one of those holidays revolves around pressies and the other revolves around food. See? Something for everyone. Especially me. I love pressies AND eating. But *that* particular holiday is called My Birthday.

Around these parts, I am struggling with how exactly to decorate our temporary rental for the holidays given a few things:

1. A very climb-y toddler who likes to take delicate objects and shyly mumble, “Uh Oh” while throwing said object at Major League velocity.

2. Our three storage bins chock full of Christmas decor are up in Massachusetts and I have no intention of bringing them here in time to pack them back up to move back to Massachusetts. I’m weird like that.

3. We will be traveling over Christmas to visit family and will be gone in Costa Rica through the New Year. Which means live trees will be dead trees upon our return.

Due to aforementioned travel and climb-y, throw-y child, we’ve decided having a large collapsible object (read: Christmas tree) with child size throwing objects all over it probably isn’t a great idea for such a short period of time around here. And while that is sad considering this will be the first Christmas Colin will actually get to participate in, it would be more sad to throw out a tree on Christmas Eve Eve. I’ll get over it.

Which leads me to searching the old interwebs for child-friendly, cheap, and inanimate decor. Decor that doesn’t revolve around a tree.

Here are some images for you….

If you love red, green and white:

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Or if you’d rather keep it simple, these might be more your style….

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Now I better get on it….only 46 decorating days left before the big day.

What’s a girl to do when she heads to the craft store and they have n0 wreath forms? Or buttons? Or little styrofoam balls?  She abandons her original Pinterest inspirations and finds a new one on the fly. Cuz she’s so crafty like that. Not to mention, she bundled up her little despot, crammed him into his car seat and drove to the craft store- she was going to leave with something, dammit. And now I shall stop narrating in the third person. That’s annoying.

So I toddled around the Michael’s until I saw some cardboard cones in the Christmas display, which is when I thought back to this pin I’ve got on my Christmas stuff board:

Oooh, pretty. Twine trees. Loving it.  This image was originally from a West Elm Catalog, so I can’t give true proper credit, but there ya have it. Isn’t twine the bomb? I love me some natural fibers and this twine had me at hello.

*But* as in all things Michael’s, I could not find twine. Of course. And at that point, I can’t say I was surprised or disappointed. I was now suffering from a Michael’s Induced Apathy, or MIA as we call it in our house. See, this is why I don’t get crafty.  It’s so much more time consuming than just popping into a Pottery Barn and scooping up some holiday decor and leaving $100 poorer. I mean, time is money. Know what I’m saying?

No matter. I am stubborn, like bull. So I headed back to the yarnery section (that’s what it’s called, right?) and scoped out some holiday greens and reds, but decided finally on a “Fisherman’s Wool” which is evidently perfect for “Felting”. Huh?  I just want to wrap it around a cone. Is that cool?

I took home the fisherman’s wool in a Baker’s twine inspired brown/cream, and three cones. To the tune of like, $15.  This better be worth it, Pinterest. This better be worth it.

I got out my trusty glue gun (Yay!) and got to spinning that cone, with said yarn, around and around, like so:

And finally, when I had given myself carpal tunnel, I wound up (pun totally intended) with these beauts:

and now for an EXTREME CRAFT CLOSE UP:

Ooooh, look at that yarn-ey goodness. And now I can say, “Oh those? I made them myself….” to which the person asking will respond, “I should hope so! I wouldn’t pay my hard earned money for those!” and in my craft induced haze, I will just smile and nod. Smile and nod.

Guys- I have fallen into a Pinterest death spiral.  You know what I’m talking about: when you spend hours upon hours which turn into days just pinning, pinning, pinning!! like a mad person. An insane person, really. Especially when you consider this:

I have 18 pins (and growing) of cute crafty things I could make. And I like to open up said file and look at them daily. Don’t act like you don’t do the same. The problem lies in actually *doing* said crafty projects. I get all “ughhh” about the whole thing and then find a comfy spot on the couch where I watch approximately 4 hours of Real Housewives (any city will do).

But enough is enough. So in the spirit of Bower Power’s Pinterest Challenge,  I am going to stop pinning and start doing (Cue me whining to no one in particular: “But pinning is so fun and easy. Plus, it’s free!!!”) Thusly, I am dragging my son to Michael’s where I will roam the aisles in intimidated bewilderment and utter confusion after which I will plonk down my debit card to the tune of $50 for a stash of supplies to make something I could probably buy at Pottery Barn for half that and which I will never use again. Until I set up my craft room in my not yet purchased mansion. Natch.

It don’t matter though, because I will become the proud owner of a little something I like to refer to as “a sense of accomplishment that I DID IT MYSELF!”  So which one to try first?  And yes, I am starting simple. Like, my 5-year-old-niece-could-do-this-and-probably-better than-I-can-simple. I’ll leave it up to you, so kindly leave feedback.

First, we’ve got this wreath- I’m thinking I’d probably get this done in time for Christmas, so I’d change the colors to fit the season:

Next I could also probably get this here ornament done by Colin’s fourth or fifth Christmas. Man, that’s a wholelotta buttons. But I like the fact that I could use my glue gun. I so enjoy the gun that glues.

And then, this doormat might be the easiest, provided I can find a “J” stencil. Oh why couldn’t my last name start with an “I”?!  Then I totally would have tackled this crafty project.

So whaddya think??

Colin was the cutest skeleton you ever did see, complete with black and white converse sneaks. I never got a good picture since he was running around hyped up on apple juice (a first for him) and Lightning McQueen halloween merchandise goodness.  My photos all look like this:

“I am Speed.”  Look at those lightning quick feet.  Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!