Tag Archives: family
A Moment of Silence…
Since Friday I’ve been at a loss for how to be and what to do in the face of such an unreal tragedy.
Every news report brings me to tears, every moment of joy in my own life has been followed by a moment of pause and grief and remembrance for the families that are aching for loved ones lost.
I found THIS post in my inbox this morning and thought that the sentiment was perfect.
Filed under About
Sugar Cut-Out Cookies & Royal Frosting
This post is actually all about celebration.
Today my baby sister graduated college. I could not be more proud of her. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!
So my whole family got together, and hollered EXTRA loudly at her Commencement Ceremony. We hugged her EXTRA tight at the following reception. We toasted her with EXTRA good champagne afterwards while we all dined together at a local restaurant. We gave presents and shared laughter and really took a little while to celebrate all of my sister’s hard work.
And I made cookies.
Weekend Stuff & a Hair Update
I know why time is going at warp speed:
Christmas.
I blinked and lost the last half of last week. So I really wanted to kinda lolly-gag through the weekend.
Didn’t happen.
Thanks For…
Photos by me & Instagram
Thanks for this day spent in my kitchen with little boys under foot, listening to 90′s-era alterna-rock in between old episodes of Gossip Girl while wearing an apron smudged with cream cheese and cheeks sprinkled with flour dust.
Thinking of You.
Dad,
I made cupcakes. The 30th of October marks your birthday and I was thinking of you. We are all always thinking of you.
You come up often and unexpectedly and sometimes in places that surprise me… pleasantly.
We share many laughs; I know you won’t mind that lots of them are at your expense because it’s in the most endearing and cherished sort of way.
Like when we talk about you puttering around in that old diesel Mercedes that you could hear coming from 32 miles away. How you permanently had that small styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee glued to your right hand, and you’d have us shift the gears for you from the shearling covered passenger seat so you didn’t have to set that precious coffee down. I always wondered what you did when we weren’t in the car… one of life’s great mysteries, I suppose.
We still think it’s hilarious that you fell asleep on the sofa every night with a newspaper spread across your chest and the TV volume set at it’s highest level while you waited for mom to come home from work. And as soon as we crept down the hall and depressed the button to adjust the volume your eyes would fly open and you’d exclaim, “Hey!! I was watching that!!” Sometimes we’d point out that actually you were sleeping, to which you always responded, “No. I was just resting my eyes.”
We laugh about your cream-of-weird-soup-covered-pork-chops that I think was maybe the only meal you ever knew how to cook, and the time that you made Lindsey and I sit at the dinner table until the middle of the night because we refused to eat canned creamed corn. Whenever I hear one of my children tap out that ting ting ting sound the spoon makes when they are determined to get that last bit of cereal or ice cream from a bowl, I think of you eating oatmeal and mom rolling her eyes.
I remember sneaking onto car lots in the dark to get a close-up look at the reeeeally cool stuff without the salesmen asking us questions.
And how sometimes you’d go to the grocery store for orange juice and be gone for an eternity because there is not one shred of peace to be found in a house full of five children, at least 3 dogs and a revolving door of kitty cats. Also… we know you talked to Ali Cat at night while you washed the dishes when you thought we were sleeping.
It still makes my heart smile to think about when I lived far away and mom would put you on the phone, and you’d keep asking me silly pointless small-talky questions because you didn’t want me to hang up just yet.
Michael still rocks your aviator sunglasses. Spencer eats ice cream for breakfast because he’s determined to gain a little weight and maybe one day fill out that worn old leather bomber jacket.
So anyway… I made these double chocolate buttermilk cupcakes. We are thinking of you.
Happy Birthday.
Filed under About
Cranberry Pecan Quinoa Granola
Also known as my new favorite breakfast cereal.
Move over, Kashi. I think I’ve got you beat.
And speaking of Kashi… I found a ton of it at this resale store over the weekend. You know, one of those wholesale buyout places that snatches up all kindsa stuff that’s about to go out of date, or be discontinued? And then they sell it for cheap!! Like TJ Maxx for junk.
So we were actually shopping for bits and pieces of Halloween costumes because Andrew keeps giving me all these crazy costume instructions. He means business. As we were walking into the store I was cracking a joke to Chad about there always being an overabundance of health food products at this place because no one except me buys them in the regular stores and they are always about to go out of date.
Public Service Announcement to my people in southwestern North Carolina: You guys. Sundrop is not a food group.
Okay, so we are walking through this discount resale store looking for an orange hardhat (I bought yellow. Close enough.), and I spotted this humongous wall of Kashi. Everything from cereal to snack bars. They even had those caramel pecan roll things. I started scouring the packaging for the expiration dates, trying to figure out how much Kashi product I could possibly consume before it’s harboring mold spores or something, and that’s when I saw it:
High fructose corn syruped hydrogenated everything.
I felt so betrayed.
Because it’s been a pretty long while since I read a Kashi label. I was just rolling along, trusting that recycled cardboard packaging and perfectly balanced right-on-the-cusp pricing. You know, it’s too expensive to be cheap garbage, but it’s just reasonable enough that I’ll consider it. Plus it’s all grainy and earthy and has like 4,000 grams of fiber or something.
To be fair, the labels that were shocking the socks off of me (or something… because I actually hate socks) were for the candy bar kinda Kashi. The chocolate drizzled coconut pecan caramel clustered cookie kind of yummies. And they DID still have lots of whole grains. And they were probably more nutritious than a Snickers bar, though, I dunno… Snickers DOES satisfy.
But I was disappointed anyway.
I make granola all the time with oats and dried fruit and coconut. I pour milk over it and eat it like cereal. I sprinkle it on my yogurt, take a bite, and then toss in another handful.
I put it on ice cream. Or frozen yogurt (by far still the BEST way to eat granola).
I really never tire of crunchy, grainy, fruity cereal. This time was a little different, though, because I added quinoa to the oatmeal. And cranberries. Pecans. Dried apricots. Roasted sunflower seeds.
No high fructoligized anything.
Disclaimer: I actually really love Kashi products. They do a really great job of taking weird food from health food stores that scares people and making it mainstream in friendly packaging. And it IS so much better for you than most pre-packaged foods. But lesson learned! Don’t stop label reading just because you trust a company.
UPDATE: This post was shared with the Cowgirl Up! Link Party #38, hosted by The Ivy Cottage Blog. Check it out!!! There are seriously HUNDREDS of entries. It’s an awesome was to find new projects, new reads, and share some of your own creations!
Cranberry Pecan Quinoa Granola
1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed according to package instructions
2 cups water
1 cup uncooked old fashioned oats (quick cook works, too)
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup vegetable oil (or coconut oil!!! mmmmmmm)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar (or maple syrup)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup pecans, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds, lightly salted
1 (6 ounce) package dried apricots, about 1 cup, coarsely chopped
In a medium saucepan, bring the uncooked quinoa and the water to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to a simmer, until all the water is absorbed and it can be fluffed with a fork, about 15 minutes. Set aside, uncovered, so it will cool slightly.
Pre-heat the oven to 250. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
In a large bowl, stir together the cooked quinoa and the uncooked oats. In a small saucepan, heat the honey, oil, brown sugar, and vanilla, stirring occasionally, until bubbly and the sugar is dissolved. Pour the liquid over the quinoa oat mixture and stir well to incorporate. Spread it evenly across the prepared baking sheet. The thinner the layer, the faster the granola will crisp up, so bigger baking sheets work best.
Bake for about 90 minutes, stirring around every 15 minutes or so. Make sure to pull the granola away from the edges and push it around the baking sheet when stirring; the edges tend to brown first.
The granola won’t be done in 90 minutes at that low a temperature. So take it out of the oven, turn the heat up to 350, and toss the granola with the remaining ingredients. Pour 1/3 back onto the baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. It’ll crisp up quickly and your cranberries and pecans won’t have that weird singed oven taste. Repeat with the remaining 2/3 granola mixture.
Store in an air tight container.
Enjoy immensely.
Not Your Average Sloppy Joe
Sometimes I take pride in fooling my children.
Often, actually.
Like when I trick them into eating things they previously pronounced to be “disgusting” or when they tell me 34 times they don’t like something, but then BLAM-O! They clean their plates and ask for seconds and have no idea they are eating spinach or something.
Filed under Sandwiches, Vegetarian
Weekend Stuff; Instagram Style
I realize it looks sort of like I’m trying to manhandle my children in this photo. I really only wanted them to stand with me in a picture without making weird faces. But they are 9 and 12. So that’s pretty much not happening.
We planned on corn-mazing it in the daylight, but when we got there they were setting up for the haunted corn maze set to start after dark.
So we fueled up on caffeine and went back. It was totally worth the wait.
Home.
What did you do this weekend? Are you having lots of fall kinda fun?
Find more Sugar Dish on Instagram HERE!
Filed under About
Trailer Trashtastic: Chalkboard Command Center
If you’ve been reading Sugar Dish for awhile then you know that my family resides in a single-wide mobile home. If you’re new here, then the secret’s out.
This is a judgement-free zone.
You can read all about our decision to live in and love our mobile home HERE.
So I’ve had a few projects in the works and figured it was about time to put a few of them up so you all don’t think I’m full of empty promises.
The Kitchen Chalkboard Command Center. I love it.
Like many homes, the kitchen is at the center of ours. Maybe it’s because I am literally ALWAYS in the kitchen? Maybe it’s because we almost always come in and out of the back door into the kitchen? Or that there are almost always muffins or cookies on the table? It’s probably a combination of all these things. It makes me happy and crazy at the same time.
Our kitchen becomes a dumping ground for all things: permission slips, homework that needs to be checked, the calendar, bills that need to be paid, coupons, the mail, Chad’s tools (MAJOR pet peeve). Also- our refrigerator is nestled in the little walkway between the kitchen and our bedroom with the closet door for our heating unit situated across from it. There is room enough to open the fridge and rummage around accordingly, but anything that gets pinned to the front of it has little chance of being seen. My kids LOVE to plaster their artwork to the fridge, but it falls down into the floor whenever you walk past one too many times. The coupons I stick to the freezer are forgotten and out of date. Evan had 3 unused homework passes from last year- that’s how inconvenient and out-of-view that space was.
The wall where I hang my calendar is pretty big, but if you have any experience at all with the walls in a mobile home, you know that they are suuuuper flimsy, the chances of finding a stud are slim, and they are covered in wallpaper that is completely atrocious. So I nail the calendar to the wall… and it falls down into the floor. I put the nail back in. It falls out again.
The solution for me was to remove EVERYTHING from the front of the refrigerator, throw out all the out of date things, and then make a plan.
The plan was chalkboard paint.
So if you read the post (linked at the top of this post) about our trailer not being trashy, you know all about the offensive wallpaper. I am campaigning to systematically eliminate each and every bit of it, but it is time consuming.
To Paint Wallpaper – I HIGHLY recommend one of two products : 1) Glidden Gripper (available at Home Depot) or 2) Valspar’s Bonding Primer (available at Lowe’s)
These two primers are made to adhere to slick surfaces. They work great on furniture, faux wood paneling, and in my case, the ugliest wallpaper on earth. I’ve used both products and don’t really have a preference of one vs. the other, but to cover the wallpaper effectively I did have to use two coats so I didn’t have pattern bleed.
I taped off my area, primed two coats (using a regular old 3/8 nap roller), and let them dry completely. I wanted to prime part of this wall with magnetic primer, which is really a cool project. But magnetic primer USED to be like $10-$15/quart. And now it’s closer to $30. I will probably still do a portion of this wall as a magnet board, but only after I’ve price-shopped nearly everything and am convinced that $30 is actually the going rate.
In the meantime I affixed a cork board square (about $4/pack of 4 at Wal-Mart) to the wall using wall anchors (CRUCIAL to trailer crap wallboard hanging efficiency), and punched up important things like homework passes with thumbtacks.
The chalkboard wall gives us adequate space to write lists, leave notes, and scribble inspirational quotes everyday.
I’m sure you’ve noticed our defunct smoke detector in these photos. It’s wired into the house (because when this place was built that must have been cutting edge technology- we also have a built-in AM/FM stereo!! Yeah!) and is disabled because it likes to shriek whenever I boil water and there is steam. I might have hit it with the broom. Don’t worry. We have others.
To Apply Chalkboard Paint – follow the instructions on the product you purchase, I used THIS and it has worked wonderfully every time I’ve ever used it. Make sure you STIR IT WELL before applying. I like foam rollers for applying chalkboard paint because they give a really smooth finish. On top of the primer they do seem to slide around a bit, and this WILL take a couple of coats, but the end result looks great.
You can see that scribbling on the wall is fun for everyone. Evan likes to add things to my shopping lists.
This little central hub for family activity adds lots of charm to what was a really boring and out-dated space. I have plans for a mini-version on one of my cabinet doors over the stove, which may be a good idea for those of you that don’t have spare wall space. The smaller version will be for meal planning and grocery lists. Magnetic primer would be excellent there, too.
The tools that kept landing in my kitchen are disguised behind the simple tab-top curtains that we originally bought from Target, but are actually hand-me-downs from my little sisters’ old bedroom. The mounting hardware is from Ikea, and if you have one near you, I guarantee you won’t find stylish window hardware any cheaper.
The refrigerator is free of clutter! Notes and lists go up and then get erased.
So that’s it. Go paint something.
Filed under Sugar
