Friday Favorites and Fun Stuff

{On Fridays, I’m sharing my favorites things and places and other fun stuff}

I hate chopping.  It’s probably my least favorite thing about cooking.  Its messy and never looks very nice and always ends up uneven.  So for my birthday I asked for this:

Its called a Garlic Zoom and it is amazing.  All you have to do is peel your garlic, drop it in the top and roll this little guy across your counter a few times.  Then he opens in the middle, you pull out the blade and dump out perfectly chopped garlic.  It saves me a lot of time and headaches in the kitchen.  I know you can get it on Amazon and I’m sure you can find it, or a similar product, in most food stores.

More Vinyl Projects

When I was showing you all my laptop,  I talked about how I loved that you could just peel the vinyl off if you got sick of it.  Well, I’ve also found that unless you peel it off yourself, vinyl sticks really well.  Even though the dishwasher.

This is my summer drink cup.  One of my favorite summer cocktails is Pimm’s.  it’s a British drink that I discovered when I was studying in England.  Its really popular over there in the summer.  It a gin based liqueur that you mix with sprite (or lemonade if you are in England).  It’s usually served with fruit (I like frozen fruit—it keeps your drink cold without diluting it).  I got one of those hard plastic cups from Hobby Lobby and put the measurements for the drink on the side.  This way I can easily mix the perfect drink.  Its been through the dishwasher several times and the vinyl still looks great.

 

I’m a big water bottle user, but I’m kind of picky.  I have certain water bottles that are just for plain water and some that are for flavored drinks.  I wanted to make sure the boy didn’t get them mixed up, so I labeled them with vinyl.  This would also be great if you had multiple people with the same water bottles and you wanted to know whose was whose.  Again, they’ve been though the dishwasher several times and still look great.

Worldly Wednesday

 

Sunset+ocean+hammock=wish I were there

Puerto Vallerta, Mexcio

I love to travel and have been lucky enough to have visited a lot of amazing places.  Every Wednesday I share one picture of the places I’ve been.

Creamy Spaghetti

Spaghetti is probably my favorite real food.  My favorite snack food is reduced fat Cheez-its, but my favorite dinner is definitely spaghetti.  If it were just me (and when it has been just me before), spaghetti would probably be on the menu at least once a week.  But the boy seems to like a little variety in his menus, so we don’t have it all that often.  A fun way to mix it up is by doing creamy spaghetti.  All you have to do is add either cream or cream cheese to the sauce.  I’ve done both, and they were both equally delicious.  I’ve served it with chicken before, but last week we had it with Italian sausage and it was delicious

I also served it with a wedge salad on the side.  I have decided to only serve wedge salads from now on (unless I but salad in the bag).  Why bother cutting/tearing the lettuce when you can just quarter it and call it good?

Computer Vinyl

I decided my new laptop was looking a little naked, so I decided to spruce her up a bit:

I love love love cutting vinyl with my Cricut.  I have used both the Cricut brand vinyl and an off brand as well and they both work well.  I have had some issues mastering the use of transfer paper, but I’m pretty sure that is user error.  I especially like that the vinyl is durable, yet if you get tired of it, you can always just peel it off.  I used my SCAL software for these designs, but you can find super cute stuff on the cartridges as well.

Now she’s looking nice and pretty.  If you had two similar laptops in the house, this would be a great way to tell whose is whose.  I didn’t even have spend any new money on this project since I already had the vinyl.

Sunday Day Summary

Menu:

Sunday: Dinner with Friends

Monday: Memorial Day Cookout with Friends

Tuesday: BBQ Pork Tenderloin

Wednesday: Breakfast

Thursday: Chicken Parmesan

Friday: Taco Bell Quesadillas

Saturday: Honey Mustard Pork Chops

Project Goals:

Get all the half finished projects on my craft table done

What I Accomplished Last Week:

Got my office/craft room (mostly) cleaned up) and started bar prep

Getting Organized

I am forever hopeful that one of these days my life is going to slow down.  I was sure that after graduation things would start moving at a leisurely pace and I would be able to enjoy a couple of weeks off.  Well, that didn’t happen.  Not one bit.  Then this week bar prep started.  Apparently I am supposed to be studying for the bar 8-12 hours a day.  I don’t do anything for 12 hours a day.  My attention span is not that long.  All week I’ve been taking tests to learn just how much I do not know.  And to top it all off, I woke up sick yesterday.  Lame. 

You may have figured it out by now, but I kind of gave up on the everyday in May thing.  I just didn’t have time and it got to the point where it felt more like a chore than something fun to do.  No point in doing it if I’m not going to enjoy it.  Plus for the most part, my life is really boring.  I went to the lake last weekend with some friends and had a great time, but didn’t take any pictures.

I found this quote in my latest issue of Real Simple: “When I cannot bear outer pressure anymore, I begin to put order in my belongings….  As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.  It pretty much sums me up perfectly.  So this week I’ve been getting my life in order before the crazy madness of bar prep really sets in.  The good news for you is that I even made a blogging schedule so I will have posts up regularly (knock on wood).  The bad news is that the most creative thing I’ve done all week is clean my office so I have a place to study and to craft.  So nothing new to post today, but the new schedule will start tomorrow, so check back then.