Sewing Week - Days 5, 6, & 7

The past three days, Charlie has been sick, and I was even feeling a bit sick. So I wasn't up, or really able to, do any sewing.

Summary of Sewing Week:
I didn't really do any sewing, sadly. I did sew a button on Mitchell's shorts, which made me feel useful and good, but that really doesn't seem like much. I want to try this again so that I can really get a feel for it.

Sewing Week - Days 2, 3, & 4

I've just spent the last 3 days working on laundry to clear a space for my sewing stuff...

Sewing Week - Day 1

This is Sewing Week! Today, I went through the bedroom closet to find all of my sewing stuff. Then I organized it all. I also started work on getting a sewing area set up. The big problem is that I have HUGE piles of laundry there that desperately need to be washed first. So I guess this is also laundry week...

Gardening Week - Day 7

I watered my plants today. And I pruned a few more bad leaves off of my jar herbs. Just waiting for things to grow right now.

Summary of Gardening Week:
I really enjoyed Gardening Week. I liked working with the plants and I liked that it made me go outside more. This gave me a good feeling of fulfillment, and excitement and hope for my plants. This was definitely a winner.

Gardening Week - Days 5 & 6

The past couple days, I've just "pruned" my herbs, taking the leaves out that aren't doing well in the jars. And I've checked to see if my pots are still moist. Not very exciting, but it's nice to have something like that.

Gardening Week - Day 4

Today, I cleaned out my planters. I had four that I bought several years ago, but haven't used in forever (like, since we lived in Virginia 3 years ago). I washed them with soap and water, then I soaked them in our tub with some added bleach for an hour. I decided to get two things done at once and ran the jets of the tub at the same time. It worked pretty great, except one of my small planters cracked. Then I let them air dry.

We also went to Home Depot. We bought potting soil that's formulated for starting seeds and cuttings more quickly. We bought spinach seeds. And we bought a trowel.

I finally got down to some planting. I planted the spinach seeds in my biggest planter. And put some green onions in my second biggest planter. I'm waiting for some herbs to show signs of rooting before I waste soil and planter space on them. The kids had fun helping me water the seeds and onions, too. They are so excited to see things grow.

Gardening Week - Days 2 & 3

The past couple days, I've done tons of research about gardening in containers and what to plant this time of year and other such things. I probably could have spent even more time because I'm kind of obsessed with researching things until I know "everything," but that wouldn't have been very effective or interesting for the blog.

I bought several different fresh herbs at the store yesterday, and I'm going to see if I can get any of them to root with just water and sunshine. I know it's kind of unlikely, since it's been awhile since they were cut from the original plant, and many herbs don't usually root without rooting compound, but I'm willing to at least try. I am also rooting green onions in a jar. I've done that a lot, but this time I'm planning on actually planting them.

Parsley (Italian, or Flat-Leaf), Thyme, Green Onions, Rosemary, Tarragon, Basil, Mint, Cilantro, Oregano, Sage

While sorting through each of the herb bunches and prepping them to be put in the water, I learned that I don't like the smells of Tarragon or Sage very much. Tarragon is okay, but Sage smells really bad to me. I like the smells of all of the other herbs a lot, but those two are just not pleasant to me. I wonder why?

Gardening Week - Day 1

I'm starting Gardening Week. All I was able to do today was browse at Home Depot. I checked prices for soil, fertilizer, and seeds. Because I'm starting in the season so late, the only thing I'm going to try planting from seed is spinach. I'm also going to be researching how to sprout and plant a few herbs.

I'm excited about doing this. Gardening obviously isn't something that can be done in only one week, so I'll try to keep track of how things go in the long run.

Cooking Week - Day 7

I made bread bowls and Broccoli-Cheddar Soup with Potatoes. I loved the soup. It was really delicious. Mitchell wanted it it to stay chunky, so I didn't put it in the food processor and make it smooth like most Broccoli soups are. Even Joseph ate all of his soup. The bread bowls were just made with a defrosted loaf of Rhodes bread, so they were easy, but really delicious as well.

I also finally got out the Berry Cheesecake Pops that we made earlier in the week. They all broke off halfway in the mold, which was really disappointing. The flavor was interesting and the cheesecake part froze kind of weird, but that may be because I didn't layer and mix as much as I should have when I poured the pops. I still liked them, and I ended up scooping the rest of mine out with a spoon. The kids seemed to like them, too, but they were really tired, so they didn't finish them tonight.

Please ignore the shirtless Agent Booth on the TV screen. ;)

Summary of Cooking Week:

I had fun, but I kind of knew I would. It was still stressful, especially on Mitchell because he usually ended up taking care of a cranky baby while I cooked. This is definitely a skill that I want to continue developing, though. Especially more as my kids get older.

Cooking Week - Day 6

Another day of breakfast. I made Baked Oatmeal. It was really good, but it was also very sweet. I think it would need some bacon or something to go with it, to offset the sweetness in flavor and the sugar in the diet. The kids liked that I let them sprinkle chocolate chips on their bowls of oatmeal. They ate it right up, too.

Cooking Week - Day 5

I made breakfast again today. I love breakfast foods, they are totally my favorite. Today, I made Tropical Smoothies, as well as eggs and bacon. I really liked the smoothies. My favorite part was putting in the cream of coconut. I could eat that stuff right off the spoon! The recipe calls for pineapple sherbet, but I couldn't find any at the store, so I used raspberry sorbet. I think it made the flavor a lot stronger, but they were still so good.

Cooking Week - Day 4

I had a really difficult time getting motivated to cook today. I've had some personal stuff going on that has been affecting my depression, so that was a huge part of it. I also get frustrated with cooking in my small kitchen. But I was able to get myself to make dinner.

I made Asian Lettuce Wraps and Mango Rice. I didn't like the flavors really at all. In fact, I didn't even finish my lettuce wrap. The kids also hated it. I don't know what Mitchell thought because he took his to work and he's not home yet. I think that many people would actually like these recipes, they just aren't for me. And they took a lot of work! It probably would have been less if my kitchen wasn't so crowded and I had more clean dishes, though. And more time, since I was rushing to finish before Mitchell went to work.

Asian Lettuce Wraps and Mango Rice

I also had time to make Berry Cheesecake Pops, but they are still freezing right now. I'm excited to see what they are like tomorrow.

Cooking Week - Day 3

I started out trying to make breakfast, but a lot of stuff got in the way, so we ate breakfast for lunch. I made Breakfast Taquitos with Lime-Chipotle Dip.

I made the tortillas myself, and I'm not very good at it yet.

 This is the dip. It was basically sour cream with some lime juice, salt, and chipotle powder.

This is the only taquito that actually rolled and looked nice. The rest kind of folded because my tortillas were too stiff. We also had sugared berries.

I liked the taquitos a lot. I did forget to put the Tabasco into the eggs, so they could have used a little more flavor. And I need way more practice with making tortillas, so they didn't work too well. The tortillas were a little overcooked to start with and then putting them in the oven with the egg inside them really made them get crunchy. The dip was really good with it, too. Mitchell said the dip redeemed the taquitos from being a little overcooked and bland.

Cooking Week - Day 2

This morning for breakfast, I made One-Bowl Zucchini Banana Muffins and scrambled eggs. The muffins were so good! They were super moist and flavorful. Mitchell and the kids liked them a lot, too.

I also went shopping again for tomorrow's ingredients. But I didn't have time to do any other cooking because we just ended up being so busy. We'll see what happens tomorrow with the recipes that I have planned.

Cooking Week - Day 1

I decided to do Cooking Week. I love trying new recipes and new cooking techniques, so this seem a natural hobby choice for me. However, I struggle with having little kids bug me and mess me up, so that's going to be a challenge this week.

This morning, I spent forever planning out a long menu with at least 4 new recipes per day. That's obviously not going to happen, but I can at least try, right? We also went grocery shopping for today's, and some of tomorrow's, ingredients. Also, pretty much all of the recipes are from my two Our Best Bites cookbooks.

I tried out 3 new recipes today. For dinner, I made:

Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade

Creamy Roasted Garlic and Asparagus Soup

 and Grilled Summer Vegetable Sandwiches

There were mixed opinions on the food. I loved the lemonade and it wasn't really difficult to make either. The soup and sandwich took a lot of work, but I didn't really love them. I think part of that may be that they are different flavors than I am used to eating; I'm more of a PBJ or steak kind of girl. I didn't weigh the asparagus when we bought it, so I might not have had enough, which made the garlic flavor of the soup kind of overpowering. Mitchell liked it, though, so it might just be me. The sandwich was pretty good, too, but I think I tried putting too many vegetables on, so it kept falling apart. And I've been realizing that I'm not a big fan of eggplant, so that was a problem for me, too. Mitchell liked the sandwich, too. His only problem was he felt the meal needed something else to be complete. I took half of the soup and sandwich to a sick friend's house, and she loved the meal. She said everything was like eating at a cafe. So I guess, it turned out better than I thought myself. Oh, and the kids only like the lemonade and the bread, nothing else. 

Sick Leave

I am sick. So I won't be working on any hobbies this week. Come back again next week, though!