For the love of Pinterest!

I am totally in love with Pinterest. I check it a couple of times a day just to see if anything new and wonderful has shown up as an inspiration. Yesterday I found the new greatest homemade treat for my ever growing obsession with all thing homemade. I found a recipe for homemade Chocolate Syrup here http://www.glorioustreats.com/2012/01/homemade-chocolate-syrup-recipe.html.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup water

dash of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

In a small saucepan, add sugar, cocoa, and salt. Whisk together gently. Add water. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and cook 1 minute. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Cool. Store in the refrigerator.

For delicious chocolate milk, add 2 tablespoons chocolate syrup to 8 oz. of milk. Heat for hot chocolate.

For milk shakes, combine 1 cup cold milk, 1/4 cup chocolate syrup and 2 cups (1 pint) of vanilla ice cream to a blender. Blend.

This syrup would also make a delicious dessert garnish or ice cream topping.

Recipe source- Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 1968. http://www.glorioustreats.com/2012/01/homemade-chocolate-syrup-recipe.html

One warning, I doubled the recipe and used the same sauce pan because it did not seem like a lot of syrup and when the chocolate started to boil it flooded the stove top. I suggest you make a small batch to start out.

I took a picture of James and his slight milk mustache. I am currently the greatest mom ever.

Damian also found some joy in his glass. I love this picture.

He also ate four tomatoes with lunch today as you can tell by the random seed leftover on his chin.

I used two tablespoons and it was wonderful

Okay it was more like three tablespoons.

In my super special know it all opinion this taste better then the store bought version that are filled with lots of preservatives and high fructose corn syrup. As for calories the syrup is about 41.3 per tablespoon. So if you are trying to lose weight like me don't use three tablespoons. 

I hope you are having a sweet day filled with Love and laughter. Be well my friends.

New project

As you may have guess by now I really like to crochet. Well today I started a little something for me. Based on these pictures can you guess what it is I am making?

I have a confession I think it looks a little like. . .

What do you think?

So I also want to add a song that I want to dedicate to crochet

Oh Crochet, I hate myself for loving you.

I hope that you are having a wonderful day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Monday, Monday

I made it to another weigh in Monday. I have to be honest my husband was gone this week so I only got on the treadmill twice but we went swimming once. I also did not do a great job at counting calories because I didn't do it at all. This is a new week and I can and will do better. This week I am going to focus on counting calories and drinking more water throughout the day. I am also going to be on the treadmill three days this week. 

Last week I weighed in at 166.6.

Today I am 164.4!

A two pound weight loss!

I decided to write my starting weight on my lose it jar to remind me of where I begin. So when the going gets tough I can look at it and know I am getting better.

I would love to know how you did last week if you are coming along on the journey with me. I hope you are even in a small way. You know a random tip I heard on Extreme Makeover Weight Loss addition is if you are craving sugar a lot give it up for a week. Because eating sugar causes you to crave it more and more. So the less you eat the better it is. I love that show. If you haven't seen it yet you should check it out on abc.com. It is truly inspiring.

I hope you week is full of satisfaction, love, and laughter. Be well my friends.

Bright hair ideas

I have long hair not overly gross long hair but it does come to the middle of my back. My husband asked me to grow it out because he loves long hair. Now I am ready to change it but I want to wait to cut it until I have enough to donate like 12+ inches. What is a girl to do? I mostly wear pony tails, bulky hair clips, and braids. Then I got an idea, a truly bright idea, a awful horrible idea. Remember when I said I wanted Farrah hair from the 70's? Well I went out and . . .

I bought curlers. This is only the second time I have rolled my hair. I think it looks both hilarious and wonderful. I think it is the possibility of perfectly wavy hair. Did you know that most people use like a can of hair spray to roll their hair? I did not and most likely will not use hair spray. I just want to try it out and see if it looks different.

I have to admit I spent hours watching YouTube trying to figure out how to use these rollers. I got lost on some vintage hair and make up which is cool. At some point I am watching this girl put on make up and it occurred to me that I don't wear make up. Did you know that a pin roll is a curl hot from the curling iron pinned to your hair unrolled until it is cooled? That seems to be an insane amount of work. Because I have long hair and half of it is really thick it takes forever for my hair to dry. So I water the yard, do a little dance, drink some coffee, make food, do dishes, wait, wait, and then blow dry in a desperate last ditch move. So while we wait let's listen to some music.

Take a bottle, shake it up, Break the bubble, break it up Pour some sugar on me. Oh Yeah!

Let's dance put on your red shoes and dance the blues, Let's dance to the song they're playin' on the radio

Everyone Wang Chung (I am not even sure what that is but it sounds fun)

I just think this song is just cool.

It takes forever to dry my hair! So I finally grabbed my blow dryer and tried to dry my hair a little faster. Then I unrolled slightly damp hair.

So I still have super long straight hair. Oh wait plus a new random crimp at the top of my head which is why my hair is parted like this. At somethings I am totally helpless. Maybe the third time will be a the charm. Besides practice makes perfect right? Any ideas on what would make this easier? For the record I prefer the picture with the hair curlers in the above picture.

I hope you have a wonderful day filled with Love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Hats, Scraves, and earrings

I have been busy crocheting lots of fun stuff. I am really excited to share my finished projects.

I would like to point out that I used the Galilee Scarf pattern from  http://www.etsy.com/shop/mamachee. For the hat I just modified the pattern a little to make it work.

For this hat I used mamachee's Brimley Hat pattern.

The spikes are also a pattern from  http://www.etsy.com/shop/mamachee

The reason why I am telling you where to get the patterns is because her pattern is copyrighted. More than that it is the right thing to do.

This as you guessed is from mamachee.

I have to tell you that Tara (mamachee) is super helpful. I got these patterns the same day I ordered them back in March and a couple of days ago I emailed her a question about the hair on this monster/bug hat. She emailed me within a couple of hours with a link to a video to help me. If you are looking for patterns she a great person to buy from.

Now to my very first pair of earrings. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled on to http://www.craftsy.com. They have classes that you can buy and I got the Crafty Crochet Embellishments class. I love it! It teaches you to add crochet embellishments to fleece to make a nice baby blanket, to towels, to sweaters, and more. That is where I got this idea from

I bought some hoop earrings from Hobby Lobby with the intention to follow along.

Well it turns out you do not need the hoop to make earrings. So I modified and used part of a flower pattern to finish these earrings.

Believe it or not these are not heavy and because it is yarn not bothersome either.

You know it is hard to take a self portrait with the earrings in the picture. I love them.

So this is what I have been up to lately. I also started on a set of matching blankets, quilting not crochet. Yes, I have many hidden talents that involve me avoiding say a college history course that started on Monday. No I am not avoiding it. I was kidding. Seriously. Okay, you got me I am procrastinating a little. So wants a new pair of earrings? Okay I will read three chapters of my world history work tonight. You are so right. I am glad we are friends and you help keep me in line. I am looking for a shawl pattern I think it would be a cool gift for a couple of people I know but I promise not to start on it until my blankets are finished, and maybe a girl bug/monster hat ( I already gave my word).

I hope you are having a wonderful creative day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.

When an eye is an eye

Yesterday I finished crocheting this hat for my dear friend's middle child.

I love this hat. It is so kooky (like me). On a side note I wanted to use the word corky but when I looked it up it meant the nature of a cork (Which could be me some nights if the nature of a cork is wine soaked). It did not really apply to the hat.

I made this eye too big for the hat and my kids found it.

James loved it because he has brown eyes too.

I love my life. Seriously how lucky am to have these wonderful little people who can always find a better use for my 'mistakes'.  I can not wait to share with you the three hats that I made for my friend's kids. I also made matching scarves! I am thinking about make her and her husband a hat so that everyone gets a new winter hat. Yes, I know it is summer. They live in Michigan so they will need the hats in September. All I really know is that I am grateful that she is letting me make these for her family. When I made my first hat I did not know that I was going to fall in love with crochet.

I hope you are having a wonderful day filled with delight, love and laughter. Be well my friends.

Reality Check

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about my weight loss goals? How I said I didn't want to change the way I was eating and would only weigh myself once a month? Yeah I do too. Yesterday I told my husband that I thought our cat was fat. We were discussing whether or not the dog was eating the cat food. He said it was the dog and I said it was the cat. Anyway I ended up proving it by getting on the scale to weigh the cat. The truth is I was mortified at my weight gain. So now I know I need to be proactive and do the work.

So let's call this the start of phase two.

I am going to count calories on www.sparkpeople.com

My goal is 1500 calories a day.

Honestly I have done this before and the reason why I have been dragging my feet is because the first 4-6 weeks sucks. If you want to do it with me that would be awesome. I could use the encouragement and a partner in crime.

I am also going to do the exercise plan that sparkpeople.com sets up for me.

I am going to keep doing couch to 5K

Did I mention that sparkpeople is a free program? It is. Does that help convince you to join me? No. I don't blame you.

I got this wonderful idea from http://www.aturtleslifeforme.com/2012/05/trim-down-thursday-2-with-nutrisystem.html

Each one of these stones equal half a pound. I decided to go with half pound measurements so that I will be able to move over more stones. I know from past diets that sometimes I only lose half a pound and I want to count that.

So I went up one pound in two weeks. I am going to stop making candy for awhile. Since it seems to be sticking around for longer than I would like. I have next to no self control if the candy is in the fridge. It is bad! Monday at 7:30 will be my weigh in time.

I have 22 pounds to lose. Which may not seem like a lot but to me it feels like a rocky mountain and I am at the bottom not even at base camp looking up. I know I can do this and that it will get easier once I get started. So if you are in with me, I am begging now (please, please, pleeease I don't want to do it alone), I know we can make it to the top.

I hope you are having a wonderful day filled with love and laughter. Be well my friends.