D is for....Dye!

Today is the first day of "D" fortnight and I celebrated the change or letter with a budget friendly (D)ay Spa at home morning. I was due for some maintenance and feel very proud to have accomplished it reasonably well myself. It's amazing the change in perspective seven months make.

Among other thing, I dyed my hair blue black. *SQUEAL*


There is a lot of red showing through so I might take another crack at it next week. It makes for fun highlights though.

We still have a lot of families joining us on Our A-Z year. If you haven't signed up you can check it out HERE.

We also have a Facebook group. You can visit us here.

Valentine's for Guys

I'll admit it up front, masculine cards are really hard for me. Since the men I know aren't in to buttons and bows; I had to step far, far outside my comfort zone and keep this pretty free of embellishments.

Here's my card:


I combined a whole lot of challenges ~

The sketch (that I tilted a little for a jaunty, mischievous effect) is from The Sweetest Thing



Crazy 4 Challenges has a Valentine Theme Challenge as did Quirky Crafts.

And Tuesday Tagger has a Valentine's card for a friend theme.

Easy Craft Projects and Our Creative Corner also had a Valentine's for Men theme.

I used an image from the Cherry Bomb set by Bombshell Stamps as my main image.

Chocolate Cobbler with Caramel Sauce

My new favorite blog is Lollychops. She makes the most amazing things from delicious recipes to adorable printables.

When I saw her recipe for Chocolate Cobbler I was a little perplexed. My recipe is fat-free and I'd only known of cobblers as fat free desserts. Sweet, but really missing something. Imagine my shock to see six tablespoons of butter and pecans! Hoorah!

Here's what we made:


You can click HERE to see the recipe.

I think we're getting a hang of "C" fortnight :-)

C is for (C)ard (C)hallenges

I vowed today to get back in the saddle and try to make a card. Since it's C fortnight, I thought a Card Challenge was even better.

To be honest, it was super hard. My hands are really shaky and getting to my supplies required a lot of moving around. I persevered and got to play with my newest Bombshell Stamp - Madonna Woodcut.


This week's Copic Creations challenge is to "feather" with copics which is having one color merge into another. I don't know if I did it right but it sure was fun. I used the current CPS sketch and the Bombshell Stamps February sketch as they are very similar:



I chose my colors based on this weeks Etsy Inspired Challenge. The Shop is Traveling Mama and the photograph I used is:



I had a lot of scraps left over so I used them to make a card based on the Clean and Simple Stamping Sketch:


Here's my card:


For this one I used Butterfly Queen by Bombshell Stamps

Thanks so much for stopping by.

C is for (even more) Cookies

We made cookies today. During B we found a delicious recipe for Butterscotch Drop Cookies so we used C as an excuse to make a second batch.

This recipe is from Sweet Maria's Cookie Jar

Butterscotch Drops

1 stick butter
1 C brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 C butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix until well blended.

Add dry ingredients. Mix well. Stir in chips.

Drop teaspoons of dough onto parchment lined baking sheet. Space 2 inches apart.

Bake 10-12 min.

*******************

Physically I am much stronger today and I am trying to spread out my meds to six hours from four. By six I'm suffering horribly but I can do it.

Emotionally, the day has been taxing. I realized I was 31 when this all began. My boys were 6, 5 and 4 and we were still considering adopting a sibling group to add to our family. My diagnosis put everything on hold. Now I have a teenager, we are too far along the family path to want to add more and I'm closer to 40 than 20. I'm sad for barely making it through these last few years, for the kids we didn't bring home and the years we missed big pieces of.

But, I'm not one to cry over spilled milk. We have the family I believe God intended for us and a close-knit strong one at that. It's just weird to pop out the other side of this trial so much older and having missed so much.

Looking forward to making up for lost time :-)

P.S. It's not too late to join A-Z, we still have new members jumping in every day!

C is for...

This fortnight we've been lost in cookies, chocolate, coffee and cake. Sad, but tasty. Trenton got a big box of baking mixes to help coax him into the kitchen, so nearly everyday he bakes something delectable.

An aside, this totally worked. My kitchen-o-phobe now makes pancakes, grilled cheese, soup and food from mixes. That's amazing for a kid who couldn't toast a bagel. I wonder where we got him in a house of kids who can cook stroganoff and curries... must take after his Dad.

The boys rediscovered chess. It's nice to see them renew one of their great loves.

As for recipes, I've been pretty laid flat, but I have made syrup a few times.

Our faves:

Cinnamon syrup (seriously, I'll never go back to regular):

Cinnamon Syrup

1 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

Mix sugar, salt, flour, and cinnamon.
Add water and bring to a boil.
Boil until thickened.
Stir in butter.
Serve over pancakes, waffles, or french toast.

This is AMAZING on pumpkin pancakes. Wow.

We also made Buttermilk Syrup which we are counting as a "C" as we call it "Caramel Syrup".

You can find the recipe at Our Best Bites, my new favorite blog.

Tips:

When it looks like this:


Don't taste it. To quote my 80's self - Grody to the max!

You're nearly there when it looks like this:


They say to cook it nine minutes, but if you live on the top of a mountain with a flaky stove it might take up to twelve or thirteen.

Here's a terrible shot of the finished product:


Do not use this on something strong flavored like pumpkin pancakes. It is better, scratch that, AWESOME on waffles or ice cream. Use it to top something mild flavored so the caramel flavor can really shine.

You really should whip up some of that cinnamon syrup. It's liquid heaven.

Blog Candy and Hospital Bits

There is a lot of gorgeous blog candy being offered by those near and dear to me. I've been remiss in sharing the good news. Forgive me, sleep and basic tasks have taken precedence over internet fun.

Papergrace, a truly top drawer, lovely lady is celebrating her birthday with a gorgeous giveaway. CLICK HERE for all the details. Here's a peek:



My fellow Bombshell, Gabby, is also celebrating her birthday with a giveaway. You can read about it HERE. You only have until tomorrow though so hurry on over there :-) Did you see, she's giving away Bombshell Stamps. Yippee!
Peek:



As for me, I'm recovering, slowly. Some missteps have really put me in my place. For example, I was sitting on the couch feeling pretty good and I decided to get myself a cup of coffee. I walked over, noticed no spoons in the drawer and bent to pick up a teaspoon. Then I spent the next ten minutes in a weepy, writhing puddle on the floor. Sad. Yesterday I read that Plaid had screen printing ink. Since I've been needing some for a project I'm desperate to do I thought we'd "zip" into JoAnn and pick some up. Fun little outing. I felt strong and left the wheelchair in the car. The fabric paint aisle is two in from the door and the trip reduced me to a sobbing mess and 18 hours later I'm still feeling it. Not so nice. So when Dr. Awesome says "rest" he wasn't just talking about the wimpy people.

A few more bits from the hospital, on day one I had some major irregular heart beat issues. As a person with a heart condition it was unsettling. I had them again a few days ago. This is the push we needed to get me back to a cardiologist and possibly have my heart repaired. The days of saying, " it's no biggie. Who cares." are behind me now. I also failed a bunch of the neuro tests where you follow the nurses finger with your eyes. Instead of smooth motion my eye jerks in several steps to the finger. It comes and goes and it's been annoying me at home. I have a lazy eye (it focuses slower than the other) and I think it's shorting out from all the spinal cord trauma.

Speaking of nurses... why are they so mean? I have nurse friends who are nice... but not so much at the hospital. My recovery guy said I was going to have to be assertive about meds as I was on a lot before being admitted and they would have a bias against me. No kidding. Before the surgery I was taking 10 mgs of a med every 4 hours. In the hospital I was offered 7mg every 6 hours - for surgical pain. I explained very politely the situation and they said, " That's what happens. If you weren't making yourself so "comfortable" (said sarcastically) at home then you wouldn't be so uncomfortable here." I heard similar quotes from almost all my nurses. One said, "serves me right for taking so much pain meds at home and I wouldn't be suffering after surgery if I had used less." That really bugged me.

Also, watch out if a nurse says, " We're giving you something for your stomach." I expected Zantac or Tums. Instead they pulled up my gown and rammed a needle in my stomach. Twice a day, for clots. And I mean rammed. I have six purple and dark green biscuit size bruises with big black centers where the needle went in and it's been ten days. When I got home I held a heating pad to my belly as it is so sore. Each needle made a spasmy knot. OW.

Other than those blips, I did really well at the hospital. Everyone was surprised by my mobility, my drive to get up and go home and how polite I was. I'll cherish that always.

Home has been tough, I have a lot of headaches and I really can't do anything. We rented a wheelchair and it has been the best thing ever. Not having cabin fever makes this all so much better. Two days ago they took me for a walk in the park along a river. Here's some pics. The angles are a bit off as I was sitting but at least you can see us :-)




Love, love, love and more love to all of you. Sorry I've been really slow replying to comments. I'll get there :-)