Quick and Easy Valentine's Garland

I did a little multitasking during my afternoon TV time on Friday. Melissa, who blogs at I Still Love You, is always writing about how fun and easy it is to sew paper (for instance here, here, and here) so I wanted to give it a try too.

I made a little template by free-handing a heart on a piece of scrap paper and then folded up four pieces of printer paper so I could cut out a bunch of hearts at once. I was going to do all white, but then I decided I wanted a little color in my garland too, so I cut more hearts out of a single piece of red construction paper.

I stacked up all the hearts and took them to my sewing machine, which was already loaded up with white thread from this project. I just fed the hearts into the machine one at a time, trying (not always sucessfully) not to overlap them so the garland would still have some movement. Sewing all of them took about five minutes, and that was with me going slowly. Then I taped the garland to the ceiling between my kitchen and dining area.

I like this project because I had all the materials on hand so it was free, the mistakes I made are not noticable, and it makes a big statement for very little effort.

Are you doing any seasonal decorating? Have you ever sewn paper?

Fruit Salad Two Ways

We had breakfast for dinner one night so I made a big fruit salad for two. (Blueberries were on sale for $2 a pint! Unheard of in this part of the country.)

A few days later I asked Chuk to make me a snack and this is what he came up with. He's a manly man, but he sure does love to style food. So cute.

Valentine's Day Planning

I know lots of people think Valentine's Day is dumb, but I don't. I like the whole fancy dinner and exchanging gifts hoopla. The other day I was online looking for a restaurant for us to go to Valentine's Day and was feeling kind of discouraged because nothing was looking that great to me. I wanted to go somewhere new, but none of the restaurants jumped out at me. Chuk walked in the room and I asked if he even wanted to go out to dinner for Valentine's Day. Turns out, he wasn't that excited about going out either.

So we decided that this year we're not going to exchange gifts and we're going cook a fancy dinner together (and by "fancy dinner" I mean not what we have everyday, not necessarily something actually fancy like lobster and filet mignon) and then play a game or watch a movie. I'm really excited about the plan. It feels so right for where we are at this point in our life.

I've spent $2 on Valentine's Day this year. I got the card for free after seeing this deal. The heart shaped box of chocolates and the package of his favorite candy each cost a buck.

What, if anything, are you planning for Valentine's Day?

Super Bowl

Chuk and I have had a Super Bowl party together every year since the beginning of our relationship. (We had only been dating two or three months when we had our first one.) I usually make some kind of themed feast and we always have football donuts from Krispy Kreme.

This year, I wasn't feeling well so Chuk cleaned the whole apartment, did four (or was it five?) loads of laundry, picked up the donuts and made pizzas from scratch while I rested all day long. By the end of the game, I was exhausted from all that hard work I did. Pathetic, I know. I think we're done with having people over until after this baby is born. It's just too much for us.

Anyway, did you watch the game? Nobody in our group had strong feelings about who they wanted to win, and I felt that made it a bit more boring than usual. Though I'm not a big Madonna fan, I thought her half-time show was good. I was disappointed by the commercials. None of them were that funny and funny is what I want in Super Bowl commercials. What did you think?

Tons of Tiny Clothes

The thing about babies that keeps throwing me for a loop is that in the beginning they need a whole new wardrobe every few months because they grow so fast. Last week, I realized we had exactly 5 items of clothing for a 0-3 month old. None of these items of clothing made an a single outfit. I kept thinking we were all set for baby clothes because our friends had handed down a huge box of clothes to us, but I hadn't really thought about the fact that most of those clothes were 6-9 month size. We have to clothe this baby for six whole months before we even touch the hand me downs. Sigh.

Let's get real. Shopping for baby clothes is probably one of the top ten pleasures in life. (Look how cute. They're so small!) But as fun as shopping for tiny clothes is, the thought of buying 5 wardrobes (newborn, 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, and 9-12 months) for the first year alone makes me kind of want to throw up because baby clothes can be so expensive and we're a single income family.

Chuk and I had gone thrift store shopping in our area a few times for baby clothes, but we live in such an expensive area that even thrift stores aren't very thrifty. However, over the weekend we drove a few hours south to spend some time with Chuk's family and while we were there we did some more thrift store shopping for baby. (Cheaper real estate = cheaper thrift store prices) We were able to get 27 articles of baby clothes for $31 in sizes ranging from newborn to 0-3 months to 3-6 months. We were both pleased.

We probably still don't have enough clothes in these small sizes, but it turns out we are having a baby shower, so I think other people will probably be getting us some baby clothes too. (See above about how fun shopping for baby clothes is.) I'm certainly less worried about it now than I was before.

Now, to figure out how to organize all the tiny clothes.

Overheard

Chuk to the cat: "Hi pretty girl. Did you have a nice weekend? We missed you."

California Club Salad

My favorite sandwich is, and always has been, a club sandwich. I think it's because when I was a kid we weren't allowed to eat white bread and we simply never had bacon; I don't know why. (True story, I think I was in junior high before I ever ate a piece of bacon and I didn't know how to cook it until a few years ago when I moved to DC and had a roommate from South Carolina who literally ate bacon everyday.)

When my parents would ship us kids off to Louisiana to be with our grandparents for six weeks almost every summer, our grandparents allowed us to eat whatever we wanted. Once a week, when my maternal grandpa took us out for lunch, he would get liver and onions; I would get a club sandwich; I have no recollection of what my brother and sister ate. I think that's when I first fell in love with club sandwiches. It was much later when I was introduced to the California club, which is simply a club sandwich with avocado, but I love that too.

When I saw this salad at Real Simple I pinned it right away. Tonight seemed like a salad-for-dinner night* so I used the Real Simple salad as my inspiration and created a salad that mimics so many of the flavors in my believed California club sandwich. Chuk and I both really liked it.

California Club Salad

1 head of romaine lettuce
2 Roma tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
1/2 green bell pepper
some onion (I used green onions because that's what I had but next time I want to try the red onion suggested in the original recipe)
1/2 avocado (Chuk isn't a big avocado fan so I only used it on my salad.)
2 oz. cooked turkey
5 slices of cooked bacon
Balsamic vinaigrette

Chop the first eight ingredients and then toss with the vinaigrette. C'mon, you know how to make a salad.

I will add, if you cook the bacon right before you make the salad, you can use the bacon drippings to make a bacon balsamic dressing. I did it and it made the husband very happy. (It also possibly offset all health benefits of eating salad for dinner.)

*I love salad for dinner night. Not only is it healthy, it's my chance to use up all those odds and ends of veggies that may otherwise be wasted.