Summer of Pinterest: Entry #1 Orange Chicken and Honey Balsamic Roasted Carrots

The great thing about being a teacher is having the time to do things in the summer.  Life gets so hectic during the school year, I rarely have time to try out all the amazing things I pin on Pinterest.  Enjoy my findings this summer :)

Today I wanted to make something different for dinner.  I love sweet and sour food so I went looking on my dinner board on Pinterest and opened up these two recipes which I thought would go well together (and they did).



I grabbed some Uncle Ben's Wild Brown Rice and steamed some broccoli from our own garden to complete the meal.  We were all quite happy with the results.  I'd definitely recommend these recipes to a friend ;)

Here are the brands I used.  I'd say this dinner for 3 (with at least 2 more portions for leftovers) cost less than $10.

And here's Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear's plates of dinner :) 

Have you tried any great Pinterest recipes lately?

100 Likes!

Today was a great day for my little business.  We reached 100 "Likes" on Facebook!

11 Minute Pasta Salad

My husband has been nagging me to make pasta salad this week, especially since he harvested broccoli from the garden.  It's a simple recipe I just made up myself with veggies we like.  Thought I'd share :)

1.  Boil a pot of water.  Pour in a box of pasta.  I like to use Garden Delight pasta go get even more veggies in there and for the beautiful colors!

2. Cut the veggies and put them into a 13x9 container.  You could use a deep bowl too, but I don't have one with a cover, so I just use some multipurpose tupperware.  Here are the veggies I used:

• About one and a half heads of broccoli
• 1 pint of grape tomatoes. Cut in half of quartered, depending on size--do what you prefer.
• Coin 3 average carrots.  If you get the giant carrots, one would probably be enough.
• 1 green pepper.  Preferably organic because peppers are in the dirty dozen.  Red peppers would go well too.  

Before Cheese

3. Drain the pasta and add it to the veggies.  I think the little bit of heat and steam brings out more of the flavor in the veggies.

4.  Add about one small container of Italian Dressing.  I usually use Wishbone because it goes on sale.  I'm sure it would also be delicious with homemade dressing, but that would send me over 11 minutes :)

5. Make small cubes out of about 4 oz cheddar cheese. You want to add this last because it will melt if the pasta is hot.

Voila!  Eat or Refrigerate :)

I'm not a card carrying feminist but...

To be honest, since I've become a mom I've really wondered how far we have come.  We being women.  Now we are not only expected to keep a tidy house, raise good children, feed the family, and be a general family manager, but now we MUST significantly contribute financially as well.  It can be a bit overwhelming. Often a lot overwhelming, at least for me.

Yet all these thoughts flew out the window when I was at the park last week with my son.  First of all I was aggravated because even in the year 2013 people still light up cigarettes around children.  It doesn't make a difference if it's open air or not!  Get that thing away from me and my family!!

My son is a bit of a daredevil when it comes to play and I'm the kind of parent who believes in letting him try out what he wants to do (within reason).  Of course J is not satisfied with the 4 and under playground, so we headed over to the big kids playground.  He led the way onto the "ship." It's a neat playground near the river.  The equipment was just replaced from what was there when I was a kid.  The new one is made to resemble a pirate ship, you know, if pirate ships had slides to exit and rock climbing style ladders to board.

And now we're to the point where I get really upset.  We go to the park later in the afternoon so it's not too crowded, so only J and I (I do insist on following fairly closely when he fancies himself to be a big boy) and a group of 5 children around age 8 to 11.  A little girl is the ring leader and sets the stage for the play game.  Naturally they're pirates.  The ring leading girl begins a story telling a younger boy she will need to be saved as she is helplessly drowning at sea...

Why couldn't she swim?

Why in this day and age do girls still think they need to be saved by boys?

Why couldn't she be heroic? or brave?  or at least fight for her life?

Why couldn't one of the boys be the floundering victim?

Why are women still painting ourselves as helpless?

Why are helpless women put on a pedestal?

I really wanted to scream at this little girl, but I realized it's not her fault she thinks this way.  This has be replaying in my mind for weeks and it still bothers me.  Hopefully, this post will help me put it to rest.

Thoughts?

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss and some odds and ends...

The last few months have been jam packed with holidays, end of semester and start of new semester craziness, and sickness that brought my entire extended family to their knees, including me (I haven't been seriously ill since 2009!).

I've had a few recent commissions that I wanted to share.  Here's the first twin set I created which happens to coincide with Dr. Suess's birthday.  These went to some very special babies in New Hampshire.

And here is a newborn version of my Girly Penguin Earflap hat that headed up to Massachusetts on Monday.

 Here is the hat for the hippest baby on the block.  If there are any teenagers in your life, you'll recognize that these are my spin on Beats headphones which are quite the status symbol!  One of my students commission and helped me design this hat for her cousin!  Oh, and its not my dyslexia kicking in, the "b" is upside down because these were made for a little guy named Patrick, so we swapped the "b" for a "p" to personalize them.

  Lastly (which I failed to notice until today due to the crazy month I had in February), Kate Nesi has some of my work featured on a little guy in her blog.

26 Acts of Kindness #1

I've wanted to jump on the whole 26 Acts of Kindness bandwagon but January is such a busy months I knew it wouldn't happen till finals were over (today).  Add in the fact that I have an 18 month old and a tight budget, it's probably going to take a lot of time and creativity, but I am committed.

#1
This was inspired by my husband discovering about 30 oz of frozen breastmilk in our deep freezer.  J no longer takes bottles (though he still breast feeds--the WHO recommend this to 2 years old and beyond FYI, just because American culture doesn't widely accept it DOES NOT mean we're weird or it will give a kid a complex--stepping off soapbox).  There was really no reason for me to keep it because by the time I have another kid, it won't be good anymore.

So I found an organization called Human Milk For Human Babies.  It operates from Facebook to connect mothers with milk to those in need.

I connected with another mother who needed milk because she had to have a mastectomy shortly after her daughter was born.  She lives close to where I work.  My donation was small, but any breastfeeding advocate will tell you that every ounce is like liquid gold.

Another mother on the website had another 80 ounces she was ready to donate.  She happens to live near me.  Things just worked out so perfectly.  I picked up the other donor's milk and met up with the family in need today!

When Nail Polish Remover Doesn't Cut It

 So I painted my nails for the first time since my son was born over the holidays with some Ulta nail polish I found while doing some organizing.  I tried to take it off after 2 days because it began to chip, which I can't stand!  As you can see, acetone nail polish remover just didn't cut it. 

 

I panicked, worried my nails would stay that color until they grew out. After throwing the nail polish in the garbage I began brainstorming solutions. Since I always have it on hand and it works on so many other things, I pulled out the vinegar and baking soda.  Here's what I did:

 

1. Soak nails in vinegar for 30 seconds. 
2. Stick nails in baking soda.
3. Gently massage nails.
4. Dip fingernails in vinegar.
5. Rinse with water.

 

Voila!