Finally

Three months after our sweet wedding, I am finally writing thank you cards. There's four down and I am simply exhausted. I could try and blame my husband for the late start because he hasn't helped (yet), but he has certainly not stopped me. Before he knows it, he'll be busy stamping and sealing so many envelopes. If he's smart, he'll seal them as I write them, because I'm not rushing them, I actually want them to sound nice and not overly generic. Which is a big part of what has stopped me writing them for so long. I'm a little intimidated by the high standards I've set for myself, though they will be reached! Better late than never....

The thank you cards themselves are lovely. I ordered them from The Salty Peanut on Etsy. I do love to browse that site, and can't wait to start my own shop. The cards are the only thing I've ordered thus far. I couldn't resist something handmade in the US after I ordered my wedding dress from China. A lil bit of guilt may have set in at that point....


And my arms are feeling a bit better, they were sore after phlebotomy class today. No one comes near me with a needle after class is over! Ha, it doesn't really bother me, the class is fun.

Another finally, My sister-in-law has moved back to NC with her family. As of now they don't plan on staying for good. But it just made sense to them at the time, especially considering that they own a house here that they'd been making monthly payments on!

And I'm getting back into my knitting groove. The throw blanket I crocheted squares for a couple years ago is finally being sewn together, only there are not as many squares as I thought there were.....so I'll need to slowly get some more of those put together. Hopefully the reds won't be too off in shade. And I've been making use of scrap yarn, crocheting it into squares. I'm going to try using only acrylic yarn and sew each square together as it is completed.

Yes, I know my photos are crappy. But you'll find they're not too shappy when I tell you they were taken on a cell phone in a badly lit room

Going through my yarn I found a left over skein of buttery soft alpaca from a pair of arm warmers I made a year ago. Arm warmers that went through the washer and dryer and now have cat hair fused to them. I am now attempting to recreate these arm-warmers, using a smaller set of needles, and a lower number of loops in the cast on (the originals were a little big), I'm hoping they'll get some length to them, otherwise I'll have wrist-warmers. Which is fine, too.


And here's a cute short strip I found while browsing online http://www.shoeboxblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/a-little-moody1.jpg

Now hopefully sleep comes easy tonight :)

Don't Want No Drama or Tuna Casserole Tonight

Long story short, evening started with a wonderful tuna casserole and ended with a fight between my husband and his brother in law. That just happens, it wasn't my fight and I'm not overly concerned with it. Unfortunately not everyone shares my opinion. Fortunately the night was long and joyous.

I'd rather talk about the food. I didn't want to just make a tuna casserole. It sounded so good but so dull. And I didn't have the ingredients to make an interesting sauce or follow a recipe, so.... improvising happened. I had my basic ingredients, can cream of mushroom soup, canned tuna, and pasta. Instead of using a couple cans of tuna, I used one can of tuna and made use of one of the larger cans of chicken we had. Added some substance and hopefully some protein. Next came my desire for variety in texture and sight. I found a can of hominy (which I thought was regular corn at first- hey! I never claimed to be a kitchen wiz!) and cut half a large onion. I boiled two almost empty containers of pasta. One was shells, the other whole wheat penne. Mixed it all together and into the baking dish it went.

And I totally remembered the spices last minute. Couldn't leave them out, so on top of it all I sprinkled  paprika, parsley, and pepper. It was very pretty. Into the oven it went at 350. I left it in while I finished dishes, 15 minutes. Then I pulled it out and grated Parmesan on top. Back in the oven on the top rack for another five minutes. I could have shaved time on either end there, but it came out great. :)

Recipe follows