Steam Punk really does it for me!

I am not a collector of little things, I am a minimalist by choice in my life.  I don't like to move things to dust, and I like a cleared counter.  I especially don't want anything with gears, little extra pieces~unless, it is digital, and then I am like a magnet drawn to the little pieces of metal, gears, screws and other fun things in the steam punk world!
Tangie Baxter and her delightful mom Rebecca McMeen have joined together AGAIN for Steampunk.  This time it is called SteamPunk Laboratory! 

I opened up and gasped.  You see, Eric is my scientist, he loves his experiments, and I love to take pictures of him doing them!  I got playing with this huge collection and some Pioneer Woman actions for pictures, and plopped them into some Creshen's photo bits!  I was in love with this layout!!

Now, I had closed Photo Shop, went to bed.  Midnight, I woke up, my head sweating, arms on fire, and my feet freezing.  Oh the joys of changing life!!  I knew laying there with a  complete hay-wired thermostat was useless.  I have slippers under my desk, and a fan that blows on my head.  So, I got some ice water, and fired up the computer! 
The bottles in this kit along with a conversation that I had in the chat over at SBG Thursday evening were bouncing in my head.  I despise taking pills or medication of any kind.  I do it when necessary, but it is not done often.  Anywhoooo....Rebecca McMeen had this woman in the kit and the coolest circles to put around her eyes, and I was off and running......I drank a ton of water, cooled my head, while keeping my footsie's warm and came up with a altered layout.  I uploaded them, and then giggled when I woke up to see I had made GSO at DST!! Thank you dear Mumure!

Meatball Sandwiches for YOU!!

This recipe is being put out into the world wide web for all!  I grew up with this being made by my Dad, often for large gatherings.  After Tony and I got married, we visited Napa, and my Dad won my hubby's heart with these meatballs.  I was really missing a dear couple, Jim and Wilma West, and since I can't invite them over, they live 1300 miles a way in New Mexico, I could show them how easy it is to make and not feel guilty as I bite into this goodness!

 

I used 2 pounds of good hamburger, along with 3-4 eggs, about a 1/2 cup of Parmesan, a full Cup maybe cup and half of breadcrumbs, about 1/3 cup of basil, garlic and a healthy amount of any other seasoning I have that says garlic.  

The kicker is the Italian Sausage! HOT is what you want!! I buy the 6 pack, and 4 of them I cut the skin and take out the sausage and add to the meatball mixture.  The other two go in a small sauce pan.  (Back to that in a bit)

Mix with hands all the meat...it is totally gross...raw eggs between your fingers, the coagulated fat off the meat sticks to the palms of your hands, and the smell of raw meat lingers! But this really combines the hamburger and the sausage with the seasonings the best.  I have tried to use my Kitchen-Aide and it isn't the same...and golly, you want to bring in the extra spice to home made meatballs! 

Rolling them is next, I have willing servants for that as seen in the previous post!

I fry them up til crunchy on the outside!  You may feel the need to pull them off quick, but let them get a good crunch!  Please take notice of the small sauce pan in the back. This is where the extra two sausages are boiling along with 2 cut up peppers.  I usually use green, but Tony brought the most beautiful yellow, orange and red ones, so I used them.  I let them simmer til well, I am done cooking all the meatballs.

Drain the meatballs well, they need to sit on paper to have the bad grease leave and the good grease stay!  Ha ha ha...but it is good for them to sit and cool a bit before being dunked into the midst of spaghetti sauce.
While the meatballs are cooling, pull the two sausages out and cut them up into bite size chunks:

**DO NOT THROW AWAY THE WATER THEY WERE BOILING IN*****

I cut them up on a plate, to catch all the goodness that might escape!  I know you are all wanting the top secret recipe to my sauce.  But I can not share that!

Pay no attention to that Prego bottle!  I am adding the meatballs slowly as not to massacre them into crumbles.  I also add a little brown sugar to the sauce, it helps keep the indigestion down....supposedly, but it seems to work, a hand full of it:

You can see the brown sugar on top, kinda brown, lol amazing stuff being brown.  I made myself laugh on that!!

Then add the cut up sausages, along with the peppers and the water they all simmered in!! Remember the breadcrumbs we put in the meatballs? Here is some science.  Just like a piece of bread will soak all the delightful goodness of spaghetti sauce into it...so does the breadcrumbs!  This is why you need to make this in the morning and forget about it!

I cleaned up all the dishes, put the meatballs on simmer with a cover on the pot and went on with my day.  I did turn it off when we left the house!  The sauce never sleeps, it is soaking into those meatballs, bringing them to the wonderful little balls of goodness you will come to crave.

Sadly, I can not show a sandwich, my Philistine children eat these over speghetti noodles, which is yummy, and we ate so late...that Tony devoured 2 or 3 before I got the camera out, and I was weak from not having any carbs all day so I could eat my small little 12" sandwich! bha ha ha...but yours will turn out!
Enjoy!! It isn't the same without the noises of joy that emit from Jim Larry as he eats it, but we suffered through!

What a Day!

I am so darn proud of my kids!  In July, we really were challenged about video games.  We could see the time wasted on them, and how they weren't playing, imagining playing, like it was stopping something.  I can't put an actual word to it, but it kept popping back up.  We sat as a family and talked about it.  The decision by all, was to sell ALL the systems and buy a new trampoline (our old one has been sewn, macrame'd and crocheted together for a while).  The monitors we took to recycle...$10 we were on our way!!  This past Wednesday, the final payment for the Wii came in, and this morning, Tony went to Sam's and bought the beautiful new trampoline.
While he was there, we all had jobs to do.  The lawn had to be mowed, the edges done, and the old one had to come down.

So, with Eric organizing it came down quickly. 

Then Dad was home, with the new one, and it became motivated!!

My man was zooming, the kids are well trained in trampoline set up.  They helped a neighbor last year put this same style one up and golly this is our 3rd??  I was inside making meatball mix and the girls came in to roll the meatballs!  Meatball sandwiches! yummy!! I will post the recipe on the next blog, probably tomorrow, with pics! Go get a bib Jim Larry!!

Dad had the girls back outside and working on the trampoline for a bit. 

The girls and I went to the park with the homeschool group, as I was meeting a friend there who was going to show me some curriculum. OH MY GOSH! That is another whole different blog! I found Science for my girls and Gabe!! YEAH....oh focus Anne.
The trampoline is up, no pic cause we then went to friends to swim for a few hours!!  Then home for sandwiches that were delightful....and eeep...the other plan was the chicken, to clip their wings!!

But the chickens didn't want to come out!!  We were losing daylight fast, and chickens really do go to bed at sundown.

Well, one jumped up and almost escaped, I rustled her right out of the plants!

I laughed so hard at the kids trying to get the chickens. 

 

 Abby came so close!! She almost got her!!

They were finally all rustled up, a couple are more tame than the other two, and enjoyed getting held and petted after the initial freak of freedom so close to bed time! 

The sun was almost completely gone...so we let them find home, and in they went, very much wanting to sleep in safety.  The kids are happy, because tomorrow, they can roam free, no more garden...oh it is all pulled up also...so we can have free roaming chickens! 

Good night!

Mojo Overdrive!!

I still look at those CT calls, I admit it, I look.  There was one last week, for Studio Manu @ SBG.  Last week, she was featured on the ScrapBook Graphics blog for Playdays, and as Designer of the Week.  Manuella gave a lovely freebie kit, and although I downloaded and looked at it, I didn't scrap with it.  Then I saw her need for a layout by Friday! Oh I love that deadline feeling, so I quickly sent an email! Yeah, she said yes!!  I downloaded the most beautiful kit, called Harmony.

I opened it and was so happy, as I knew exactly what picture needed to be preserved with this kit! The girls joy at opening their presents this past August. 

I sent it off to Manuella, and was all happy.  I had scrapped and enjoyed the moment.  I sat down and kept thinking about the other things in the kit.  I got back up and made yet another layout. This was  picture that wasn't good in composition, needed a lot of cropping, but the brightness of it, would play well against Harmony's papers!

Planting Seeds!

I have really fallen off scrapping wagon.  I have piles, well files of pictures unscrapped.  I just don't have the mojo to sit and figure out what kit to use? I seriously think I am gonna open a template and add the pics and pour colors on the layers to match! and hit print! ha haha
That being said, my hubby just finished a bible study on studying your bible and we as a group took apart the parable of the soils.  I felt the need to make a page for my art journal to keep the points in my heart while they were fresh.  I used the Art Journal Provisions #39, from Tangie Baxter and Amanda Sexton 

There are some exciting things coming with Tangie Baxter and SherrieJD tomorrow:

I hope to see my fellow caravaners this Thursday for the Campfire Chat:

Birthday Catch Up!

We have birthdays July (Mr. E), August (Abs and Annabo) and September (G-man).  I ask you to sit and enjoy a quick view of those special days this year!
I think I did Eric's, but my memory is fading, so here is all 4's in a birthday recap:
Eric chose cash over presents this year! He is growing up!

My kids are a bit addicted to cake balls:

Eric ate 14 of them! I could gag! But he may be 14, but he still gets that smear of chocolate around his mouth like he did when he was 4! I love that part!

August brings the girls giggles to an all time high.  Having your birthday on a Sunday is tight! They had to wait until after morning service and after eating (the girls chose Red Robin...yummmmmmmmmmm) for presents, since they had already received the cruiser bikes earlier.

A straightener for their hair was a happy gift, but the best came from their brother who was pretty happy about being able to give (he is a lawn mowing man in our neighborhood and making some pocket change)

The girls squealed when they saw the present from Eric:

Individual bags of Flaming Hot Cheetos! I mean they SQUEALED!! I took a picture of Gabriel to capture his emotions:

Ah, the fact that he was still 11 and his younger sisters were 11 was not sitting well!  He had to wait 19 days for his birthday, it was torment.
Later that day, the girls also had yeah, cake balls (insert insane mother)

We were out of candles, from the old teen ager using them all...so the girls got ghetto candles, matches shoved in the cake ball, one each for 11...bha ha haha

Finally, Gabriel's big day turning 12 happened.  He barely slept for the two days prior.  He was beyond excited about the day and more excited about this thing called a RIP stick? He is so good on this thing. 

I was ready for the cake balls this time!! Too ready!! We had candles, but the darn things were so cold, Tony had to drill holes with a skewer, so the candle could go in!

But G was happy, as he isn't a big sweet eater anyways, so Eric took some pictures of the big blow out the candles:

He only wanted 4, good thing, cause those candles were a fight to get in the ball!  So after a lovely meal of grease and carbs at Gabriel's choice at Long John Silvers, we had cake balls!
Whew....so they are done for this year.....next up...oh yes, mine!! oh hmmmm

My new Set up! Don't hate me cause it's beautiful!!

Geez, we moved everything this week.  The kids cleaned their rooms and rearranged.  My dining room got blasted and scrubbed and my office nook edged out about 14 more inches.  I am slowly taking over the dining room.  Actually, it is because I now share the space with another computer desk.  I keep telling myself I have more room.

Here you see my new babies, they aren't identical, but they are beautiful. Dual screen set up. Let me explain the desk. You are about to step into my brain.  You can at this time, STOP, bring your mouse to the green circle with arrow and go back to where you were before you came to this site.  I warned you.  Some people don't really want to know the inside story.

 

 Going from left to right, our stereo system!! You can tell music is not big here, it is mostly for my AM radio and XM old time radio shows.  Behind the radio is a fan, as I get hot head and cold feet.  I have slippers under my computer for that.  Under the radio, my adding machine, as I still do my checkbook the old fashion way.  Toilet paper roll, for those sneezes in the AM.  A perpetual drink.  Pile of letters and note pages with to do lists on them.  Under the fall screen, you find previous stated check book, a box with my daughters broken gold ring that broke 1 day past the guarantee. My eye drops. Then see the rulers! I never really believe the rulers on my photoshop, I check them often.  I also scratch my back with them.  The ever present pair of glasses on my desk. The calendar is the tasks from Tangie.  My mouse looking so cute. There is an easy button from Staples that bothers my hubby that I can't pay full price for anything, but can plunk down $5 for a stupid button.  OOoops, I almost forgot, under the right screen, the one with a website, I think it is DST? (scrap forum) on it.  see that large white dot? Look on the base, see it? That is Abby's last tooth.  I save all my kids teeth in a box.  I am kinda tearing up a bit, cause my babies are growing up on me.  That blue huge thing? That is the monster, my honeys old computer.  The one he made videos on for church, oh yeah, processors that are humongous and video cards that make photo-shop swoon in delight!

The LAUGH on the wall was a present from my family for my birthday years ago, and I look at it often!

Thank you for taking the short trip, and please come again!