Thursday, September 22, 2011

Busy Week

Since I'm doing pretty much nothing but work these days, I just thought I'd share some pictures from the past week. Enjoy

I spent Thursday-Saturday with two sweet little girls, this is one of them watching big sister kill it on the soccer field.

On Sunday, with gorgeous weather, we went to Piedmont Park for an Art Festival.

This is another sweet little girl I'm spending a lot of time with and this is her latest move. So stinkin' sweet!

Me and the 2 year old made some Chocolate Balls. I stole a few on her mid-day nap. Which means I left their house with a stomach ache. Ouch.

Yum, yum!

I hope to be back with some more interesting things to share soon.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Christmas already?

Although I work everyday of the week I feel like I have to keep busy when I'm at home, otherwise I'll be spending every afternoon on the couch watching lame stuff on the TV. Something that will help me from being lazy is remembering the $90 I'm about to spend on a booth at this years Swedish Christmas Fair in downtown Atlanta. Yes peeps, that is why I've been making a ton of Swedish Dala Horses lately. I'm a bit nervous about it, what if NOBODY buys my stuff!? Oh well, I've convinced myself that if that happens, I'll be okay with it. I'm not just making Dala Horses, I'll be trying to make some things in the near future and show em' off here on the blog so you, my friends, can tell me if they are sellable or not. Yesterday I went to the local fabric store and bought some Christmas fabric, so I better get going!

some of the stuff I've done and some stuff that still needs some fixin' with..

time to get to work with all this fabric!

My own version of the Dala Horse.

Okay, now this was my first time making an apron and the embroidery that says "God Jul". I definitely have to call up my mom or farmor and see how to do the embroidery the correct way. Obviously. This one will be worn by me behind the booth. Let's hope the other ones turn out better! :)  



Hope everyone is doing great!!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Meeting New People

It's Sunday morning and I'm alone in the couch. I spent most of my day yesterday in the car driving to and back from Knoxville Tennessee. My friend Jessi just came home from spending the summer in the beautiful Montana working her butt off on a ranch  (yeah, she's cool like that) in the middle of nowhere. Instead of shipping her saddle home with the expensive help of FedEx another worker from the ranch living in Knoxville was kind enough to take it on his car ride home to his house when he left the great west to come back south. She asked me if I wanted to make the drive with her, it's quite far, close to four hours one way. Since I hadn't seen her since the beginning of May I said yes so that we could catch up and hear about each others summers. As the day drew closer I was kind of dreading the drive, I mean come on, how fun it is to sit in a car all day? But since I had said yes and I really wanted to see her I had to get into that car yesterday in the butt-crack-of dawn. 
Boy, am I glad I went. Not only did we talk for eight hours but we also got to meet some really nice people. The man who had brought home Jessi's saddle invited us, together with his wife, for lunch and dessert at their Tennessee home. The man is retired and decided that when he was done working he was going to become a cowboy. So every summer since his retirement he has gone to different ranches out west working and becoming a cowboy. His wife has gone with him on a few of his adventures and they have many pictures to tell of their travels. We only stayed for about 3 hours but when I got home I started thinking about the people we meet in life and how lucky I should be to have meet so many great people that has had such an impact on my life. 

I don't mean to get all deep and stuff this Sunday morning, but it's just interesting to think of the people I've meet. Some of them are more memorable than others, but they all surely have some what of an impact on me. An example; my friend Jessi I met in school, we had two classes together two semesters ago and we hit it off right away and been friends ever since. She is such an interesting girl, she grew up in the south, a true southern belle and I love it. Here we are, really good friends, but from totally different worlds and we could have just as easily never have met each other. But we did because we both made decisions in life that led us to that class two semesters ago. 

So what I'm trying to say here I guess, is that I almost made the decision to not sit in that car yesterday, but I did and I ended up meeting two wonderful people. People I probably wont see again, but that surely had an impact on me. I mean, how cool would it be to go and become a cowgirl after I'm retired? I would love that! Would I have ever thought about that if I hadn't said yes to the drive to Knoxville to go see these people and talk to them and look at their awesome pictures from their travels? I tend to think not. 

So, to the 5 people that read my blog; saying yes to things, even though they may seem not so exciting to begin with, thay may lead to you meeting new people and seeing new things. And who would not want to do that? 

Anyways, long blog post, but sometimes I'm just in awe of the people I've met in life and I hope to meet many more in my life.


Thursday, September 8, 2011

Recipes, recipes, recipes...

Yes, I feel that my blog posts are mostly about what I make to eat lately. Hmm. I guess it is a way to be creative but it's not like I come up with these recipes on my own or anything. I love to search the web for a good recipe and then make it and enjoy it. This afternoon I felt like something sweet, but was too tired to bake anything so I decided to try a recipe I found a while back. It turned out pretty good so here we go:


Peanut Butter & Chocolate Covered Banana Slices

Bananas
Chocolate Chips
Peanut Butter
Coconut flakes

Melt the Chocolate chips with the Peanut butter in the microwave or on the stove in a waterbed. Cut the bananas in pretty thick slices and dip them in the chocolate. I dipped half the slice first and then put it on a piece of parchment paper on a plate and then covered the rest of the slice with chocolate/peanut butter mix with a spoon. However you do it is fine as long as the whole slice is covered with a yummy layer of chocolate and peanut butter goodness. Then sprinkle them with some coconut flakes before you put the plate in the freezer. Leave it in there for at least an hour before you enjoy it. The bananas almost taste like vanilla ice cream. 

I'm enjoying mine with some Chamomile tea. 

I did not eat all of them, although I could have, I just wanted it to look pretty for the picture..

Other than that, I'm watching the US Open (tennis) and I am very excited that tomorrow is Friday. I hope you are having a great evening!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Mexican Night

Tonight was Mexican night at our house when we had some Fajitas for dinner. It was really good. Not very hard or time consuming but who wants that on a week night anyways? We have actually gotten some peppers from our garden lately so it was time to put em' to good use. We had forgotten to buy the Fajita Spice packet so I had to turn to the very trusted Google.com to find a recipe and trust me, I will never spend $1.29 on one of those packages of spices again.

our own peppers and some store bought red onion

you need all the fixin's like: guacamole, salsa, sour cream and cheeeese..

finished product. Yum!

Fajita Spice Mix Recipe: 

  • 1 tablespoon cornstarch (maizena starkelse for er svenskar)
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon crushed chicken bouillon cube
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 
  • 1/4 teaspoon cumin
Stir it all together and then mix it in with the chicken! Gott, gott i gott gott!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Delicious Dinner Date

Saturday night and me and my hubby is laying low. Mostly because I love to spend my weekends in our house fixin' with things and just being cozy in the couch. I know my hubby would rather jet around town from place to place, so I really do appreciate when he slows down and is willing to just BE. So tonight we decided to have a dinner date in front of the TV with some wine.

So we made an easy but yet SO delicious dinner. I found the recipe online and it is now one of my favorite dishes ever. Seriously. So yummy. I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys so you can go make it yourself. So here we go: 

Roasted Lemon Garlic Herb Shrimp

1/3 cup olive oil
1 lemon, zested then half cut into thin slices and other half into wedges
3-4 fresh thyme sprigs, leaves removed
sea or kosher salt and fresh black pepper
spaghetti/pasta
1 pound fresh shrimp, medium-sized, deveined with tails off
5 cloves garlic, minced
 
1. Preheat oven to 400 (200 Celsius) degrees F. In a 9x13 baking pan combine olive oil, lemon zest and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Bake in oven for 12 minutes. Meanwhile cook pasta.

2. Remove pan from oven, add shrimp, garlic and the thin sliced lemons (don't squeeze them), toss to coat with oil mixture. Bake for 8-10 more minutes or until shrimp turn pink and start to curl. Serve over pasta, with extra-virgin olive oil or butter and fresh-squeezed lemon with additional lemon wedges for serving.

picture from this blog  

 This is us enjoying every bite....




That is it for tonight. Have a wonderful weekend. It's Labor Day weekend here, so we're off on Monday. So great.