Fun Happenings Lately

There are quite a few things going on lately that I need to update regularly. I guess I can just lump them all into one large post every few weeks, since apparently I can never get my act together enough to post weekly or on any regular schedule. Life has been pretty great lately- I feel like I'm learning new things (crafty things!), and trying new recipes again, and keeping up on my NYRs. (For the first year ever!) I realy think 2013 will be the greatest year yet.

New Year's Resolutions
This is just a small update- but I have water! Meaning, I did complete my February goal of obtaining emergency water storage. I don't have a ton yet, but we at least have one case of water bottles for emergencies. I still need about 7.8 cases more for our family to cover the 2 week goal of water storage, but I'm not sure our apartment would ever have room for that much water! We'll stick to just a few more cases and that will make me happy. :)

For March, I just need to get an emergency money supply and start putting together 72-hour kits. I'm actually super excited- we had 72-hour kits growing up (all I remember was tuna and jolly ranchers. Gosh mom, you think I'd ever eat tuna without mayonnaise and relish! Seriously....) and I've received pre-made kits from various church activities. But I'm excited to actually come up with a list of things I want to include, then go shopping for those things (mainly different granola bars and such :D), and really know what's in my pack!

Fun Treats
March will certainly be the month of fun treats- we have both of our birthdays in the next few weeks, and I'm sure there will be Easter treats as well! But we had friends over yesterday and I wanted to try a new dessert- so I made these triple-chocolate oreo 7-layer bars. Basically all the kinds of chocolate you can think of in one gooey bar! It was super good, and although I think I prefer the regular 7-layer bars with the more.....expanded....flavors (graham crackers and coconut, I love them!), these were great to have with ice cream and friends. I used this recipe from Once Upon a Chocolate, and I have a feeling I'll be using more of her recipes in the future. :)

Pinterest Goal
I don't have a lot to show for my pinterest goals that I'm working on as part of the link-up party, but I promise I've been doing them! First, I learned how to do a fishtail braid. It was way easier than I expected, and certainly adds a fun new hairstyle for my boring rotation. Also, I know that I can tweak it in the future to do different things like a bun, full braided head, etc.

But what I can show you is the Martinelli bottle project. I didn't have twine, and it's my goal not to spend extra money for these pinterest projects. So I used old brown yarn that I had (which matches my house perfectly!) and I love how it looks. I was totally expecting to just have to glue it at the bottom, wind up the yarn all the way, and glue once more at the top. Not! As long as the bottle was straight, I could do that. But on the curvy part, I had to glue every few centimeters to make the yarn stay straight. I like the look of a messier bottle with the yarn overlapping randomly, so I might try that next. I had hopes to do all my Martinelli bottles (4 full size and one mini bottle), but I just got this one done before I was worn out. Maybe I can do one a week or something! But for now, I love this bottle on our table. :)

Pinterest Challenge

This is my first link party...thing. I usually never participate in all of the many fun blog things that I see every day, but this one really appeals to me. For the Pinterest Challenge, we pick six pins to do over the next six weeks. I have so many early pins that I just can't find an excuse to do, so here are my choices! By the way, I think six weeks ends on April 2nd. I better get working!

1. This outfit is pretty simple, but it has jewelry! I want to learn to accessorize better.
2. I've pinned several recipes for chewy granola bars because I love them so much. It's about time I actually made them.
3. Deep cleaning schedule- I'd love to get in an actual routine for cleaning and doing the deep stuff a few times a year.
4. The waterfall braid- I've wanted to do this ever since I first saw this braid, but I've never spent the time to actually research and try it.
5. I currently have 5 Martinelli bottles...just hanging out in my closet. Maybe I can turn them into something I'd actually like to have around the house.
6. I'm most scared for this pin- refrigerator oatmeal. Sometimes it sounds so delicious, and sometime I get kind of grossed out by the thought of cold oatmeal. I guess we'll see what I actually think after making it!

So there it goes. Six pins in six weeks. I'm super excited!

February Catch Up

Hi blog, you still exist? It seems like forever since I last posted- and it has been a few weeks, but not actually that long. I guess my life has been filed up with other things this past month, but I honestly couldn't tell you what exactly. I haven't been too busy with work or church...or maybe I have. I think I've been too busy living life to remember to take pictures of any of it- which is fine with me because it means I'm having a fun, busy life! But here are some things I've been up to, just to document the craftiness and such. :)

Cinnamon Rolls
This wasn't really a planned dessert, but we decided we definitely needed cinnamon rolls one Friday night. I didn't feel like using yeast and slaving away in the kitchen for hours (who are we kidding, I love slaving in the kitchen!), so I used a non-yeast recipe. They were pretty good! Different, and not quite as good in my opinion, but well worth it for just a half hour recipe instead of several hours.The recipe is from Iowa Girl Eats, and I just made a half batch.

I apparently never took a frosted picture. Sorry!

Valentine's Day
Continuing with tradition, I made steak! Last year's Valentine's steak was....not that great. I can't even remember what went wrong, but knowing me I probably over cooked it, under seasoned it, and bought a very cheap cut of steak. So this year, I did quite a bit of research, and thanks to recommendations from many people, bought a rib-eye steak (well...for him. For me, still just a cheap cut!). I seasoned them with A-1 rub (which wasn't my very favorite, but it was super easy to have it pre-made), and then I cooked them on the stove. They were great! Done to perfection and very tender. I was so pleased. Maybe someday we'll even have a grill and we can do this more often.

We also had this fudge chocolate cake. It was quite delicious, and it got even better over the next few days as the glaze sunk into the chocolate cake. I didn't have cream for a true ganache, so I used a recipe that included regular milk with butter- and it was great! The one layer of cake was just the perfect amount, and it was very fudgy.

I also apparently never took a frosted picture of this cake. Sorry again!

Recovering Kitchen Chairs
I have wanted to recover our kitchen chairs ever since we got them- they were not that cushiony to begin with, and they were a boring white fabric that usually looked dirty. I've been researching and planning for many months, and I finally did it! I bought the foam (foam is ex-pen-sive. It makes me super sad) and fabric a few weeks ago. Then, we just needed a staple gun! I bought that this past weekend, and got to work on the chairs. I was amazed at how fast they went- like 15 minutes per chair or less! Of course...they're definitely not perfect, and so I kind of regret doing them so fast. But it's nice to have them finished and so pretty and so cushiony!

I was surprised how easy the foam was to cut. But also, that's why mine look kind of messy- I didn't think that having straight lines on the foam would matter, but it really did. You can tell where my foam was curvy or jaggedy. Also, I didn't have quite enough fabric. Because of this, I had to cut my pieces smaller than I wanted, and I had to stretch to get the fabric wrapped around and stapled. So some chairs have edges that are pulled more tightly than I like. But hey...they're done!!!!!

An NYR Update

Remember New Year's Resolutions? Seriously, it was less than a month ago but I think I've already forgotten several of mine. Well lucky for me, I was randomly browsing Pinterest today and saw a link to food storage tips. Hey, I need to do my food storage! So since I need a schedule for all things because I can't seem to do anything without one...(and because food storage and preparedness is super daunting to me and I'd like to plan and space it all out), here's an expanded schedule for my preparedness goal and my family history goal!

Food Storage
I found this great website Prepared LDS Family. She even has a "start here" page, hurray! Following this website, here's my plan for preparedness:

February- Find out how much water we need and get that much, plus get into a regular rotation (literally, we have no water stored....I'm a bad preparer!) Water Page
March- Set aside an emergency fund and put together a 72-hour kit with important documents and everything else. Money Page and 72-Hour Kit Page
April- Plan the meals we would eat for our 3-month supply and begin stocking the ingredients 3-Month Supply Page
May- Continue to stock food for 3 months
June- Continue to stock food for 3 months
July- Continue to stock food. If I haven't already done so, can fruit or vegetables to put in supply.
August- Hopefully have supply completed. Now, make a rotation schedule and find and compile other recipes to use for food storage.
Buy September, I'd like to feel comfortable and knowledgeable about food storage, and have a long-term plan in place!

Family History
So family history is always on my mind ever since I made this goal, but I'm seriously still overwhelmed just thinking about it. I know quite a bit of my family history has been done on all sides...but I still feel like I need to learn about it, even if it's just learning what others have done. So here's a rough schedule of what I'd like to do for this family history thing...
February- Continue watching all the tutorials and playing around with New Family Search so I feel comfortable with the website and what family history is all about.
March- Link up both of us so we're attached to our ancestors as far back as we know (and make sure all our own information in entered).
April- Print our family history fan and make a binder to begin collecting all the information for our ancestors
May- Begin actually researching. This is a very vague goal, because honestly I'm not sure all that this entails. I'm such a beginner at family history...but hopefully in the next months I can learn more and feel what my purpose for family history will be.
June- Now that I'm working on family history, I'd also like to make sure our own histories are recorded. Research things I can do to create our family history- be it journals, pictures and scrapbooking, etc. Begin something that will keep a record of our family history for our posterity.
July and on- I'm honestly not sure where this goal will take me. I'd like to begin finding a family name that I can work on...but is that what I'm supposed to do? But the rest of the year will be spent acting on this goal- searching for our family history.

Well that's it...lame post about needing schedules to run my life, but every time I write my thoughts about these two goals, it makes me so excited! If you have any comments about either of these goals...please share them with me because I clearly have no idea what I'm really doing! But I guess that's what learning is all about. :)