First LO of the Year

Boy, have I been slacking in the scrapbook department this year. I've felt like I've been playing catch up for years and never seem to get close to catching up. I started a Christmas Card Challenge this year and just let scrapbooking fall to the side.

I had taken my kids surfing right when they got out of school this year. I took pictures and my son took some pictures with his waterproof camera. I decided to get them into the scrapbook. To my amazement the joy of scrapbooking came right back to me. I'm anxious to get back into it. More LO's to follow.

My Luck is a Changing

As many of you know Northern California has been socked in with smoke from a lot of fires. Well, that's where I live. It's been going on for about a month. Here it is summer and we're spending 95% of our time indoors. Anyhow, last Wednesday the kids and I decided to venture out and see a movie. It turned out to be one of the smokiest days yet. We're OK though, because we have the AC filtering the air on our way there. Halfway to our matinee the smoke started to smell really bad and my daughter reminded me to push the "recycle air" button on my AC. It smelled SO bad and that didn't help much. By that time we were at the theater.

We went to see "Wall-E", which by the way I liked way more than I thought I would. After the movie we got in the car to leave and I turned on the AC and nothing happens. Not a peep! Now were in a predicament... too smoky to leave the windows down.... too hot to leave them up. This was one of those 106 degree days. All we could do was put the windows down and buck up.

Now this presents a few problems one being I was going to be leaving town in 2 days and I didn't want to leave with a broken car. I wasn't sure why the AC wasn't working and feared something bigger could be wrong. Two... would I be able to get the car into the shop on such short notice. Three... if I could get to the shop how would I get home? And Four... where the heck was I going to get the money to fix what I was sure going to be an expensive problem. So, I called the car repair office and to my surprise they could get me in the very next morning and had a shuttle to bring me home. I was feeling very fortunate. Then the gal handling my car calls me at home to tell me that just the fan was broken. In fact it had gotten so hot that the connector and the fan had melted. It was a faulty part and they have improved the new parts. (OH SO that was the extra awful bad smoky sell we were being choked with!) Good news, it's covered by warranty. I really couldn't believe my good fortune! I don't think I've ever heard those words. What I've heard many times over the years is "Oh too bad your warranty expired 3 weeks ago."

DH got home from work with plenty of time to drive me up to pick up my fixed car. When I went to pay the cashier hands me a flower. A little unusual and surprising, but a nice touch in these impersonal days. I paid for my measly oil change. I then get instructions that a questionnaire will be coming in the mail and that if I fill it out and bring it in they'll give me $25 in gas. I'm flabbergasted now. Having a broken car has never gone so well for me.

Flower in water... I was back on the road and on my trip with confidence!

Adventures with Arepas

Last Sunday I decided to make arepas. I saw a Throwdown with Bobby Flay with Arepas. Maribel and Aristides Barrios, NYC restaurateurs who hail from Venezuela were challenged. The food looked SO good and interesting. Arepas are Venezuela's national bread. They are eaten at all meals and throughout the day. These small corncakes are sold in restaurants called areperías, where they are stuffed with all manner of fillings. Arepas are the basically the Venezuelan version of the sandwich. Many different filling can be used, but the gals on Throwdown said the best and most traditional filling is Pabellón. It's their best seller. So, that's what I wanted to make.

Bobby Flay lost the throwdown, so I didn't want to use his recipes on the Food Network. Using notes from the gals that WON the arepa throwdown I went on a search of the internet for recipes that were similar. This was going to be quite a project, but I knew it would be fun and delicious. I'm never scared away by hard work in the kitchen. First I needed ingredients. Ran to the local grocery store Saturday evening and bought just about everything. The produce gal couldn't find a plantain I knew what they looked like despite my complete inexperience with them and I found them. They didn't have the special corn flour I needed. Decided to make a trip to the Mexican grocer in the morning. They had exactly what I needed... precooked white corn meal P.A.N.

According to Maribel and Aristides to make a simple traditionally served Arepa one needs a Venezuelan stew called Pabellón, black beans, fried plantains, arepas, and cojita cheese. I had a lot of cooking ahead of me. I got the boneless chuck roast cooking similar to how I would cook pork for carnitas. Browned roast, then add onion, celery, salt, pepper and enough water to cover everything. I simmered it for 2 hours. While this was simmering I got the presoaked black beans (the reason I went to the store the night before wanted to soak the beans) to cooking with a little browned salt pork and onions. They too simmered for 2 hours.

Once the beef was cooked and shredded, with dog and my daughter hanging around for bites, I could do the final cooking. I followed the Pabellón recipe I found on line with a few changes from the notes from Maribel and Aristides I got off of the Throwdown show. The changes I used, a 3 pound boneless chuck roast, red AND green peppers, 1 can of tomato paste instead of tomatoes and 1 1/2 tsp of ground cumin. I needed about 3 cups of my broth from cooking the meat to moisten it up just right. I did make one mistake in that the peppers and onions should have been finely chopped. My kids would have preferred it from an aesthetic point of view (you know kids it may taste good, but doesn't look good). It looked great to my husband and I and it didn't effect the taste at all. It was SO good. I'll definitely be making this stew again.

After the stew was made I started frying the plantains and frying the arepas (corncakes). Plantains were pretty straight forward. I sliced them like the gals said on throwdown. I must say that the plantains scared me a little. I've never tried them before. I read that you want to get one that is yellow with black speckles or completely black for maximum sweetness. Completely black at the store wasn't an option. Once peeled they are much firmer than a regular banana and had an odd peach hue. After frying I tried one. They have sort of a fried sweet potato flavor and texture if you've ever had tempura sweet potato you'll know exactly what they are like.

The arepas I followed the recipe . Later that day I tried making the arepas the way the Maribel and Aristides had said. The difference being the online recipe used boiling water. It took a very long time for it to cool, so I could shape the arepas for cooking. The gals used lukewarm water and the dough turned out very soft and difficult to shape. I'll need to work on them to maybe find a happy medium between boiling water and lukewarm water. The one exception to the recipe is I only fried them on the griddle as the arepa gals said. The recipe asked them to be baked also.
OK I've got Pabellón, cooked black beans, fried plantain, arepas and grated cojita cheese. Now to assemble. I split the arepa all the way through layered on 2 fried plantain slices, a spoonful of Pabellón, a spoonful of black beans and then a sprinkle of cheese. I then leaned over the plate and took a big bite. WOW it was good and very messy. Maribel and Aristides from the throwdown have their own arepa restaurant in New York and they said people ask for forks. They really raised their noses at this notion as they are to be eaten with one's hands. I am a utensil person. I wanted a fork SO badly, but I didn't want these ladies snickering at me for using a fork. I kept adjusting my grip and the corncake until all was gone. I found out that one recipe of corncakes wasn't enough. It made 8. That's why I made 2 recipes with 2 different methods. I had to make another batch they were SO good.

I found the "What's 4 Eats: International Recipes & Cooking Around the World" website to be a great reference for my adventure into the world of deliciousness. I've placed links all above for the recipes I used. Once everything was cooked it was a very fast and easy meal. We had leftovers for lunch and it seemed even better the 2nd and 3rd day. Then it was all gone. I think I'd like to make this again and have family over. It would be a fun meal to share.

4th of July Pop Up Slider card

My friend Linda from my RCS group pointed me towards a youtube video on Dawns Stampin Studio with instructions on how to make this card. It looked so easy and fun I decided to make a few. Since I don't have a computer in my craft area I decided to look for some written instructions. I found them here at Split Coast Stampers. I took the cutting measurements that Dawn had given on her video and wrote them down on the written instructions and it made it very easy.

I left the card open all night so the sparkle paint would dry. That is why there is a white line on the closed card. I'm sure once it's closed in an envelope it will relax completely closed. I must apologize for the blurry picture. I took the pictures when my contacts weren't on and thought they looked perfectly in focus. :D

The Cupcake

I found the cutest cupcake pan while at the craft store. I was out shopping for fabric and paper. Dangerous... me... craft store... money. Anyhow I sold all my character cake pans at a yard sale last year. I have teenagers and they've out grown things like Winnie the Pooh. When I saw this I thought how much fun for everyone.

Today I baked the recipe on the card that came with the pan. It's a chocolate pound cake with chocolate butter cream frosting. One needs to be very careful making a delicious cupcake when you have a teenage son in the house!

Pinwheel a go go

I've just had the greatest time playing with tag punch pinwheels. The first one I made was a birthday card for a friend. Then I found this red plaid paper left over from the cupcake cards and thought wouldn't it make great Christmas pinwheels. The first card I made I used traditional Christmas colors. I liked how it turned out. Then I found some tag board snowflakes in my stash that I'd been wanting to use it and one of the color is lime green. So, thought I'd again work with nontraditional Christmas colors. I used my color wheel to come up with red, lime green and turquoise. Well, I didn't have the right color of lime green in card stock and that card I thought looked terrible. I really wanted to throw it away, but DH and daughter liked it and insisted I not waste a "pretty" card. So, I kept it. I tried again with lime green using the actual lime green tag board snowflake and I liked it better. The 3rd card I made I steered clear of lime green and liked it even better.


I'm all out of the red checked paper and I may be bored with pinwheels.... who knows. I need to make 2 more cards for my Christmas card challenge. I'll see if there is any paper that strikes my fancy and maybe I'll make at least 2 more.

A Day In The Life Of A Mom

I have teenagers now and people think that they don't need you any more. Nothing can be further from the truth. It can be tricky because they're teenagers. Being there for them and not appearing to be "be there for them." I've been very fortunate to not have my kids say I embarrass them or that I'm not cool. They don't say I AM cool and I'm well... cool with that.


I have a friend who is a fairly new mom and she's known me since my oldest was 6 months old. She said one day, "You don't know this, but I've watched your mothering like a hawk over the years." She said, "Something you have going for you that I don't see often is your kids like you. They like spending time with you. I want that with my child." I was surprised to hear it as I don't think I've done anything special over the years. I've just raised them as I would want to be treated as a kid. I think the fact that I like them and like spending time with them shines through.

Even when I've been at my busiest and the kids have wanted my attention if I can I stop what I'm doing to hear their little joke or watch them do a somersault. If I can't stop I make sure they know that they are a top priority just sometimes a cake needs to get in the oven before one can stop. I'd tell them "my hands are busy... just give me a second."

I think sometimes adults have children before they're ready for that type of time sucking activity. And yes kids are time suckers... but in a very good way. When I had my kids my plan was to spend the next 20 years devoted to enjoying motherhood. Some say you need to spend some time on you, but if you really think about it I am being pretty selfish in enjoying every minute of my kids lives.


I had a fairly good childhood. I had a loving mom and a strict yet loving father. A good amount of toys and a bike that my dad kept up to date with all the latest gizmos. (not necessarily a cool thing.) They weren't particularly physically loving. I do remember a hug and kiss here and there, but not nearly as many as I would have liked. I don't even remember cuddling. I felt uncomfortable asking for a hug and kiss or reaching out to hold a hand. They were raised you cut the ties as early as possible with your children. Make your kids self reliant.


So, when I moved out as a young adult I decided that every time I saw them or left them I'd kiss and hug them. I thought who would reject a kiss and hug. Not my parents. My mom was totally in to it. My dad would get a "Oh oh OK she's going to kiss and hug me" look on his face. It wasn't long before he was totally in to it too. I knew I had something going when a few years later my brother was coming back from a 6 month deployment on the USS Enterprise. My mother and I ran up and kissed and hugged him. My dad stepped up and my brother held out his hand for a handshake. My dad reached over for a handshake, but instead he pulled my brother in for an embrace. I teared up.


I strive for self-reliance in my children too, but I don't feel it is mutually exclusive from being a loving family. For my kids I wanted them to feel like a cuddle was never out of the question. I was really lucky in that my son kissed me goodbye at his school everyday until he was a freshman in High School. Each year I thought he'd quit as the other children had done. When he quit I didn't say a word I knew he was growing up. BUT at home he seldom misses a hug and/or kiss before he goes to bed. He's nearly 17 and he'll still sit next to me on the couch and throw my arm around his shoulders or lay his head in my lap while we watch a movie. He's even been known to sit on my lap and just about squish me. I just soak it in. I know he'll be off on his own in the very near future.


My daughter is another story. She's been glued to me since birth. I am not exaggerating. She's nearly 14 and she was just holding hands with me at the mall. I kept thinking what if a friend sees her holding her mom's hand. I finally said it out loud. She said, "I don't care you're my mom." I enjoyed every minute of it. She still lays all over me when were watching a movie and I do have to finally give her some guidelines on a cuddle and a smother. I say now and then "Don't smother your mother!" She thinks it's funny, but will back off... a little.


I have an antique telephone in my house that works and is hooked up to the house phone system. A contractor years ago saw it and asked, "Is that the world's oldest phone?" I laughed and then he asked if he could call his wife on it. He says, "Hi honey, I'm calling you from the world's oldest phone!" A few weeks ago my kids were in the dining room doing their homework and I was in the back of the house. My cell phone rings and it's the home phone calling it. I thought that's weird! I answer. My son says, "Hi mom just thought I'd call you from the world's oldest phone. Luv ya. OK bye." I hung up and felt properly hugged.