My Pinterest Life #10 – Halloween and Fireballs

Happy Halloween!

So far today, I’ve dressed Pinterest-y (leggings, boots, lots of layers), went to a flag football game, did some birthday shopping for the Fox, and made an adult beverage for a trick-or-treating after party tonight.

I don’t know how these will taste since the jello hasn’t set yet, but what I’m trying to make is Apple Cider Fireball Jello Shots. The ingredients:

And the final result (well, not so final since I have yet to taste them).

They smell delicious – like mulled spice cider. Hopefully no one gags or dies when they try them tonight – LOL.

In knitting news, my cowl is coming along nicely. I haven’t had much time to work on it, but I’m almost through one skein of yarn. It’s actually larger than the picture suggests (I think it looks washcloth-sized here). I knit with size 13 circular needles and chunky yarn so what you’re seeing is only half of the piece.

Tomorrow, I tackle the birthday cake of all birthday cakes. I’m even skipping yoga (GASP) to work on it. But you only turn 12 once, and I’m determined to make up for the lame cakes of the last three years. I used to make all kinds of crazy desserts and cakes for the boys. Hopefully, my Pinterest project kicks me back into a love of baking again.

Until tomorrow, kittens. Have a safe and fun Halloween!

xoxo ~dawn

My Pinterest Life #9 – Steaks and T-Straps

Hey All –

Last night I went crazy and made red meat, meaning I cooked steaks. In my house, the steak cooking is left to Bug because he has no faith in me to not mess it up. Not that I’m a bad cook, it’s just that I’m better at vegetarian stuff like quinoa and white meats like chicken and pork.

Anyway, Bug had bought some sort of steak, and in my effort not to eat out every night, I decided to cook them. Of course, I turned to Pinterest for suggestions, and I decided to try my hand at this:

Now, of course, my steak looked nothing like that. For starters, there was no bone and there were three of them. But I didn’t let that deter me. I heated up my grill pan, coated my steaks in fresh sea salt, covered the bottom of the pan with olive oil and seared the hell out of the bottom side. While the bottom was cooking, I tried to rub salt all over the top side, but kept getting splattered. Giving up on that, I flipped the steaks over after 4 minutes, put a glob of butter on each steak, and shoved it under the broiler for 5 minutes.

Have I mentioned my fear of broiling? I’ve caught things on fire more than once back in my early twenties. Had to use a fire extinguisher and everything…good times. (And I still maintain, I am not a bad cook).

Anyway, pushing my fear aside, I broiled the steaks. The results:

Heavenly.

Melt in your mouth, heavenly. That’s the best word to describe the steaks. By far the best thing I’ve cooked in ages. Added bonus: no one complained. Complete WIN.

In other news, last weekend I picked up a Banana Republic skirt for about $13 after all the sales were added in. It’s a “summer” skirt, but I liked it, and I couldn’t say no to the price.

I needed to make it more appropriate for cool weather, so, taking inspiration from this site,  I threw on a slouchy navy sweater, navy tights and t-strap heels, and my favorite peacock scarf. I think it works. May not be my poshist outfit, but it works for running around and keeping me warm.

 

Oh! And I did the winged eyeliner again today. So much fun now that I know the trick.

Here I am on Day 9 of My Pinterest Life, and I’ve learned a few things. First, I miss being domestic. When my life fell apart, I lost all interest in running my house, making dinners, and generally being crafty. This silly experiment has shown me how much I love and miss those things.

Second, and I don’t talk about it a lot here, but yoga plays a huge role in my life. I do it almost every day for at least an hour. Nothing beats detoxing your mind and body.

On my Yoga board, I pin a lot of yoga sayings and asanas. For me, yoga is more about centering myself, taking stock of where I am, and trying to be the best version of me that I can be. Helps that it’s great for getting/staying in shape too 😀

As for My Pinterest Life, tomorrow I’m going to work on organizing the linen closet. Should be a riot.

Annnnnd I just got a call the Colonel has puked at school, this is after a call earlier about Pudge and his headache. Good thing I have yoga tonight!

Until tomorrow, Kittens.

xoxo ~dawn

My Pinterest Life #7 – Getting Pumpkinized

Hey All,

I’m feeling a little under the weather today, so nothing elaborate. I just want to lounge in my yoga clothes and allow myself to feel sick. However, despite feeling blah, I still managed to make it to yoga (I’m trying to go 25 days out of 30 – I have 10 days to go!). We focused on Sutra 2.16 – The Pain Which Is Yet To Come Is To Be Avoided.

During class, the sutra kept running through my mind. How do you avoid pain if you don’t know it’s coming? I’ve gotten fairly good at stopping painful thoughts once they start, but how do you avoid pain? Especially when it comes from outside forces? Like those Facebook, “Day in History” posts. Sometimes I don’t want to see them. Especially not the ones from 2 and 4 years ago. I read them, remember where I was at that time, and feel stabbed in the gut again.

Not fun.

It’s unintentional pain-hunting or the act of picking a wound over-and-over again.

Anyway, enough philosophical chit-chat. On with the mess I call My Pintrest Life!

Yesterday, I let the Colonel carve the real pumpkin he picked up at a Fall Festival on Sunday. He insisted in doing it himself, and hey, who am I to interfere when a young boy wants to use sharp carving tools? So I let him at it.

This is what he did:

Because I’ve now trained my children to be thinking about Pintrest at all times, he suggested we do something with the pumpkin bits. Hence, my search for pumpkin facials. Have you noticed how much I love smearing stuff on my face?

I wanted to make this because the picture seems so spa like. And if there is anything I love, it’s a day at the spa.

I decided to wait until after yoga today to cook up the pumpkin. I only needed a tablespoon, so I threw some chunks in the microwave and set it for 6 minutes.

It looked like this going in:

I sat down to eat some yogurt. Suddenly, a nasty, burning smell permeated my house. The pumpkin was on fire and the plastic container melting! I have no clue what I was thinking. I cook whole squashes for 6 minutes, not a tablespoon.

I quickly sorted everything out and was left with this:

Not exactly something to rub all over my face, you know? I dumped it out and tried again, this time cooking for only a minute. It came out lovely. I dumped a tsp of honey and a tsp of apple cider vinegar into the pumpkin and mashed it all up.

I rubbed it all over my face, making me nice and orange:

Really, I need to do some make-up posts.

About half-way through drying, I received a call from the high school asking me to pick up Pudge for the second day in a row. We think he has another concussion – which means off to the clinic tonight to check his current stats against his baseline. This boy is a lacrosse goalie, and he’s already suffered a severe concussion back in February. He doesn’t want to give up the sport he loves, but he may very well have to. After what we went through with Bug’s TBI, we don’t take brain injuries lightly.

But enough of that. I had to hurry and wipe the mask off my face and bolt out the door. I noticed as I was driving I had pieces of pumpkin on my fleece. I also smelled like a salad. But my skin looks and feels amazing.

Going forward, I’d most likely use canned pumpkin. I think it would go on thicker and be less messy. But aside from the mini-fire, this is a PINTEREST WIN!

Until next time, Kittens.

xoxo ~dawn