Silver Linings

While we were at the dentist this morning, my tire went flat. At least it was after the appointment, AND we were in town close to the tire place, and NO cavities!! (-Though there was discussion of Sariah's impending orthodontia.)

When we went to get it filled, we found we were way overdue for new tires, AND an oil change. We've known this for a while, but at least we found out at a time when we could afford it (Though grudgingly. Seriously. Who wants to pay that much money for something as boring as tires?!) and that we were able to do it before we had a tire blow or something.

While we waited for the car to get fixed we went for a walk. (How awesome that the stroller was in the van!) It was cold and none of my kids had coats. At least it wasn't raining! (Or let's be real, we're in Rexburg, it could easily have been snowing.)

While we were walking a bird pooped. On. My. Hand. I'm not seeing a huge silver lining there, (at least it wasn't my head?) but I'm incredibly grateful for baby wipes. However, I am NOT grateful for sippy cups. A few minutes after that "fowl" incident I discovered that Helam's stupid sippy cup leaked all over my phone effectively destroying it. (Di-thanks for letting me use you as an emergency contact. My phone let me see that you said yes, but not reply. I'm glad you said yes, because I'd already put you.)

When we got home, it was 4. Helam, who usually naps at 11, went down for a late nap. (SO overdue.) I was supposed to get to spend my afternoon sorting and folding laundry, doing dishes, and rewinding the fishing line that Helam spread all over the house and organizing my craft room. That's really not happening. Neither is dinner.

Luckily, in about an hour I have a husband coming home who I hope has a lot of energy because he hasn't had to look for a lot of silver linings, while dragging "a multitude of blessings" (3) around town while getting pooped on today.

In other good news... before the dentist appointment, I got both the big bathrooms cleaned, scrubbed, and beautiful. (Baseboards too!) As I was getting ready to go, I tried on one of my old "skinny shirts" (that used to be way to small for me) and my skinny pants (Not to be confused EVER with skinny jeans, though they were jeans.) Both have now become my "fat clothes."

Silhouettes

This was my project today! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Welcome Spring!!

I've longed for it's arrival. I'd seen the signs of it's coming. My kids are starting to smell like outside. It must be SPRING!!! I'm a little more than excited. (A Lot.) I can finally come out of hibernation and it seems like everything is starting anew. Love it. Today we spent the day working in our garden. Our garden. We've never had a garden. We've moved every April and August (plus some) for the past 7 years. It's exhilarating! It's also nice to get to do "Spring Cleaning" instead of "Spring Packing." It's exciting that we actually get to stay in our newly cleaned and fresh (it will be;) ) house, and not just clean it to move out! Lalalala!


Yay.

Infestation!!!

Our house has been infiltrated! We've got green footprints coming out from the heater vents...

Some more coming from the bathroom sink and all over the toilet, and I'm not sure what they did to turn the water green. There were tracks going to the kitchen and throughout the refrigerator, leaving adhesive symbols of luck and fortune on all of our food. In the girls bathroom upstairs it looks like there were a couple of them walking all over the counter. (More green toilet water.)

Luckily, they seem friendly! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I can't think of a catchy title but I wanted to show off a bit!

I've never gotten into the whole scrapbooking/homemade card thing. Well, I've sort of gotten into it, in that I've purchased piles of papers, letters, stickers, flowers, glue, etc. I've yet to complete a single page. So I'm pretty proud of my latest project where I actually used scrapbooking materials and completed a project. (I'd be a lot more proud had I used up some of what I'd already had, but instead I bought some new stuff, but let's pretend that part didn't happen.) This was my first attempt and I'm pretty happy with the results. I also enjoyed making it which I suppose is a really really good thing, as when I was buying "just a few" new things, I found a "really good deal" on smaller notebooks, (I love notebooks and basically anything made of paper.) and bought a lot. I figured they'd make great homemade gifts... Hmm. Well, at least one is done, and the recipient will love it! (It's Essi.)

Before

This is a cute little writing book we got for Essi. Each page has a place at the top for a picture, and the bottom it is lined for beginning writers. Very fun. But not quite fun enough.


After

Much more appealing for my budding writer! (Unfortunately, the notebook was not as appealing as the Wii that Essi is now grounded from after failing to shower me with adequate gratitude, praise, wonder and excitement.)

I Heart Cauliflower!!

I feel like I've just been given one of the greatest cheat codes in the game of life. I guess it's not up on the same level as you know, knowing who I am, where I came from, and where I'm going, but for a girl like me who (really) loves carbs and has been cursed blessed with a body that doesn't... It's pretty darn close.

The secret is Cauliflower. I guess you can make some pretty great mashed faux-tatoes with it, as well as use it (somehow) for a fake lasagna, or easily imitate rice. Tonight I made cauliflower crust pizza, and I know there is someone out there who loves me and cares about me and I believe he created this magnificent vegetable just to show that. Can I just say, it was awesome?!? (I guess I could, but I usually like to ramble on a bit, so I won't leave it at that.)

I admit, I was a little (lot) skeptical before I started. I LOVE pizza, and some kooky knock off by a veggie loving, low carb eating, wannabe cook I truthfully conceded probably would not do it for me. However, I'm trying to become a veggie loving, lower carb eating cook, so I figured, even if it wasn't super great, but I could imagine I was eating pizza, it would still be worth it.

My efforts were rewarded. It tasted abso-flipping-lutely amazing. My entire family loved it, and it was fun to see how much cauliflower my 5 year old was putting down. It tasted really bready, and definitely carby, but it wasn't. Normally when I try healthier versions of recipes, I walk away feeling like I "kind of" had what I was craving, but still crave it and want the real thing. After this I felt like I had just had real pizza, and felt a little guilty knowing that somehow I'd probably just gone over my carb limit for the month. It was great. Another bonus, it's really filling. I made 1 cookie sheet of pizza (by quadrupling the recipe I'll post below) and normally our family could probably eat 2 pizza sheets. By the time it was half gone, we were all so stuffed, wanting to eat more, but unable. (So now we have left overs!)

Anyway, because I love you all, I'm going to share the recipe. (Or you can just google cauliflower pizza crust, but to save you the time, here it is. 1 caveat - it is not low fat.)

1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower*
1 egg
1 cup mozzarella cheese

(I added some Garlic powder, some Oregano, (just sprinkled in enough for it to smell good) salt, (just enough for the plain cauliflower to taste kind of yummy) and Parmesan cheese (maybe between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup for the 4X recipe?))

**pizza or alfredo sauce

(On half I used Hunt's all natural garlic, basil, and oregano sauce, pretty low carb, and decent pizza sauce flavor without having to add anything. For the other half, I mixed some cream cheese, some heavy whipping cream, and some pesto sauce. It was good.)

toppings (make sure meats are cooked)
mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray. (Very important. We didn't grease for the bread sticks that I tried to make. Yeah. Don't forget to spray.)

In a medium bowl, combine (seasoned) cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Press evenly on the pan.

Bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes (15-20 minutes if you double the recipe).

Remove the pan from the oven. To the crust, add sauce, then toppings and cheese.

Place under a broiler (grill for the Europeans) at high heat just until cheese is melted **.

Nutritional Information for the entire crust:
calories: 434, fat: 25 g, carbohydrates: 8 (net), 13 if counting all, fiber: 5 g, protein: 41 g.

Final tip, expect it to taste pretty bad and weird, then when you taste it, you'll be like, "Nuh-UH! This is NOT cauliflower!" Let me know if you try it and what you thought!

Coming up this week (hopefully) funeral cheesy faux-tatoes!