kitchen adventures!

i have been on a baking/cooking kick for the last couple weeks. i'm not terribly surprised by this since i get this way every 6 months or so! earlier this week i made mini banana muffins and oatmeal that wasn't in a pouch from quaker...i was pretty proud of myself for the non-instant oatmeal risk taking! so today i made bread pudding and baked ziti, both for the first time...hence the kitchen adventures!

the bread pudding recipe came from a bon appetit recipe book that i checked out from the library last week. it really was easy and seems to taste right...i'm not a bread pudding afficionado, i just like to eat it every now and then, so it could be completely awful and i would have no way of knowing! i used white bread from the bakery at publix and will have them slice the bread for me next time, so that was lesson number one to remember for the next time. lesson number 2 was that i need to buy spreadable butter in a tub since stick butter isn't the easiest to spread if it's not near melting! other than those things everything turned out very well, little messy from spreading the butter in the pan, but very well none the less! it baked up in about 35 minutes, a little less than the suggested time, but that didn't surprise me since our oven tends to run hot. it smelled great and was a really pretty, golden brown color...very tempting to stick a spoon into. but i was patient enough to wait until it stopped bubbling...just barely though! after i let it cool i did stick a spoon in, which actually was lesson number 3...no amount of blowing will prevent a scorching piece of bread pudding from burning your throat when swallowed! i'm the only one who's tried it so far, but my family aren't exactly the guinea pig type so my need to try new things is slightly hampered by that. guess i'll have to start hitting up my friends to try my baked goods!

the baked ziti recipe was also from a library book, the everyday food cookbook. it's actually a recipe for baked ravioli, but since i couldn't find ravioli at the store i substituted ziti. i made the sauce from scratch (as part of the recipe) and found that i really like having a mini chopper to chop the onions and a hand chopper to mince the garlic...gadgets make my life so much easier! no lessons learned with that recipe really, it was super easy...just a bit messy when the sauce bubbles unexpectantly onto my shirt, but that always happens whenever i make red sauce. hubby was happy that i decided to finish the sauce while only wearing my bra and sweatpants, since i took off the stained shirt and figured it was just easier not to worry about staining another shirt. once the sauce was thickened and boiled down i added it to the ziti in my often neglected stoneware 13x9 pan, covered it all with cheese and popped it in the oven to bake. it smelled so good and came out just perfect, although really, it was a recipe that seemed hard to screw up. the kids liked it, even the hubby said it was ok and he's hard to please!

so my kitchen adventures today turned out well enough with no major problems, aside from my idiotic self burning my throat cause i was so impatient. and j asked what i was going to make tomorrow...glad to know she likes the things i make! 

i'm hoping/planning to bake or cook at least one new thing a week. as well as, sewing something, be it clothes or quilts, during the week as well. it's all wishful thinking on my part though since i'm great at starting things, not so great at finishing them.

changes, changes, changes...

i had grand ambitions for an online shop of my crafty things, but alas, i had awful follow through and not enough drive to get the word out! so, i closed the shop and decided to give it another try in the future when i can dedicate more time and energy to generating traffic & sales. and that's where chunky bug designs stands today, it's something that i'm oddly at peace with since it means i can fine tune all the things i neglected the first time around...i look at it like a learning/growing experience (if i looked at it any other way i'd realize that my laziness caused the problem & i'm simply not ready to face that, yet.)

now i'm sewing more for jordan...well, i will be soon. and trying my hand at painting, it's a fun little hobby & jordan likes to paint while i paint so it's more time together. i'm no where near as artistic with my paintings as i'd like to be, but jordan likes the flower paintings that i've done for her and that pleases me enough to continue! i'll keep at it til i get better or i move onto something else...like i always do! my husband just rolls his eyes & lets out a little sigh when i start trying all these new things since he knows that i'll have moved onto something else within 6 months...give or take. 

such is the story of my life these days...trying something new only to move onto to something else after 6 months or so. i should really try to stick to one constant thing, but that just seems so boring to me...always doing the same thing! i like change, crave it really and that would probably explain the trying new hobbies thing. i do have some hobbies that are pretty consistant...i've been sewing and crocheting (off and on) for nearly 8 years and cross stitching (off and on) for 15 years. i'd say that's a pretty good track record...the jewelry making, ribbon stuff, & painting are all new things that i've started over the last 3 years. i just always feel the need to be busy, doing something and since cleaning isn't my idea of fun, i try crafty hobbies! 

i like to think that trying all these different hobbies is just my way of exploring all the crafty things that are around me. i'm trying to broaden my creative side since i'm far from trying to broaden my intellectual side...i gave up on that side long ago! 

completely unmotivated!

it's back to school time around here! generally that means that i get a much quieter house for at least part of the day and therefore get more cleaning and crafty things done...so far, not so much! while the house has been quieter (especially when jordan gets in trouble & is banished to her room), i have still been completely unmotivated to do anything remotely creative or crafty! i have done more cleaning though, so that's at least something. now, granted, school did just start back and i am still getting back into the groove of things, but i thought for sure some kind of creativity wave would just wash over me! wishful thinking on my part i guess!

so, i'm back to reading to kill the time and really, it's not helping. it would probably help if i expanded my reading out past twilight and harry potter, so suggestions are freely welcome! now, i've decided to turn to writing to ease the nerve racking feeling of time slowly dragging by and to purge all the useless things running through my mind! unfortunately, as i sit in front of my laptop nothing seems to be coming to mind to write about! isn't that always the way, though? as soon as i'm in front of a keyboard, all useless thoughts escape me...but the minute that i walk away i'm sure something will pop into my head!

here i sit, poised to write something of interest and yet, nothing is coming to mind! 10 minutes have passed since i decided to blog in the hopes of time passing...guess that's a good thing. or maybe it means that i'm a horrible typer who doesn't have a clear thought in her head & it takes too much time to write 3 measely paragraphs! i'm hoping for the first but leaning towards the latter.

unmotivated...and music obsessed, now!

i am so unmotivated these days and i blame it all on the summer! i haven't worked on anything craft related with any kind of regularity since last month. i have read more than i normally do...having read through the twilight series twice in less than a month! now i'm back to reading harry potter, having started goblet of fire today. the hope is always that i will reread the series up to & including the one that is currently in theaters, before i actually go see the movie...i give myself about 3 weeks from opening day before i actually breakdown & go see the movie. i figure that within that time i've read the books (again) and the crowds are thinned out so i can really enjoy the movie! it's worked pretty well in the past and this year i told stephen that i would take him with me. normally i wait til it's on dvd before i let him watch it, but since he is getting older i thought this would be fine.

but now my book/reading obsession has veered off to a music obsession as well! i've always liked music of nearly all kinds...i've never much enjoyed rap or metal so i tend to avoid those (nothing against those who do like that music, it's just not for me!). anyway, since watching twilight i have "discovered" two bands (paramore and mutemath) that i now absolutely love and cannot get enough of their music! i have purchased and downloaded their latest albums & listen to them daily, while anxiously awaiting their newest releases later this year! for the most part, i can be found with headphones stuck in my ears, either attached to my laptop or my mp3 player, listening to those bands while i read, workout, clean, and just generally go about my day! i find that music in my ears helps to drown out the shows that my children insist on watching, that i can't quite frankly deal with on a daily basis! luke thinks i'm just trying to ignore the kids, but it really is their shows, movies, games, etc. that i'm ignoring by always having the headphones in my ears!

that seems to be where i find myself today...unmotivated to do anything but read and listen to music. and a bit obsessed about the music that i am choosing to listen too!

a bit obsessive...

so, i must confess that i get a bit obsessive about things at times and it tends to consume me more than it should. in the past my obsessions have ranged from crafty endeavors, "business" endeavors and to the most recent...books. now you wouldn't think that books would be a bad obsession, but for me it is! i get so involved with reading and finishing the story that i neglect the things around me and that's where the problems are. the house tends to fall apart and i get angry when i get distracted from the story in front of me...it's bad!

my latest obsession is the twilight series, in the past 2 weeks i have been consumed by my obsession. i started reading twilight, finished it within 3 days (i'm a horribly slow reader), then watched the movie (which has become another entirely separate obsession!) before moving onto new moon. once i started new moon, i became even more consumed with the story...i like that book the best (so far) & finished it within 2 days. i really wanted to wait and just borrow the last 2 books in the series, but just had no willpower. so i ordered the complete series and had to really test my patience by waiting for that to arrive. i decided to reread both twilight and new moon while i waited for the set to arrive...figuring that if i read it even slower, the impatience i was feeling for my the arrival of the rest of the books would somehow be easier to take! it worked better than i thought it would and so i didn't completely obsess about the package that i knew would eventually arrive, hopefully sooner rather than later.

i was very surprised when the books arrived about 3 days earlier than i expected, but very relieved too since i didn't think i would be able to control my obsessive need much longer (see, it's very bad!) i did manage to wait to start eclipse until i had finished new moon for the second time & caught up on the cleaning that i had neglected around the house. as a quick side note, i do try to control my obsessiveness enough to continue to take care of my family & myself...i don't neglect meals, showers, bathes, familytime, things like that. i simply slack in the housecleaning department, which is already very slack! so i started eclipse on wednesday this past week, finished it by thursday morning & then moved quickly into breaking dawn, finishing it late friday night (really it was early saturday morning). i stayed up until 2am, two nights in a row, completely consumed with reading the books. sleep means very little to me when i'm obsessed with something!

the last book that i got so obsessed over was the final harry potter book and the day waiting for that to arrive in the mail was not good for me or my family for that matter. in all fairness i had given my husband plenty of warning that once the book arrived i would be completely useless since i would be buried behind the pages of the story. i simply had no idea at the time that i would be a basketcase waiting for the mail to arrive...had i known that it would take all day for the mail to arrive & thus increase my impatience, well then i would have simply bought the book at the store the day it came out! but i'm a sucker for a bargain so i preordered deathly hallows foolishly thinking that i could be patient! i wasn't patient & that was my first true glimpse into just how bad my obsession really was!

but once the book arrived and i fed my need, i was fine! starting and finishing the book within the weekend, even caring for my family while walking around with my nose buried in it. i was rather proud of myself and assumed that my obsession was simply with the harry potter series and would therefore die away since the final book had been published, read & reread several times over by myself. yet, nearly 2 years later i sit once again with my nose buried behind yet another book series!

i have now read twilight & new moon twice, eclipse & breaking dawn once, and the unfinished midnight sun once over the last 2 weeks. i also watched the movie 4 times within a week, breaking down and buying it for myself so that i could watch it whenever the need struck. however the movie caused it's own separate kind of obsession...one that revolves more around music than the actual movie. i'm hoping that once i reread the last two books that my obsession for all things twilight will then fade away as easily as the harry potter obsession...allowing me to freely reread the books as often as i like whenever the mood (not the obsession) strikes!

i'm not holding out much hope though as i head upstairs to pick up eclipse and bury myself once more in the pages of the story!

too many thoughts...

i have far too many thoughts floating around in my head at any given time on any given day. and that can be completely frustrating! today is one of those days...too many thoughts mixing with too many memories...driving me close to the edge of insanity. i'm a horrible, hormonal mess who could cry at the drop of a hat and actually has already broken down into several small crying fits already today. yippee for my family and to a lesser extent, for me.

it's hard to know why i'm really crying, all i know is that i can't seem to stop. so now i'm writing to try to make it all go away or at least lessen the tears...figuring that by getting things out of my head that will therefore stop the build up of tears. or it could cause a bigger downpour, but either way i'll feel somewhat clearer headed...if that's even what i could call it.

my deepest desire is to be a writer, but there are lots of writers out there...those published and those not and i know that my words are nothing special, at least not at the moment. but, i'm gonna try, yet another "hobby" to add to my long list, to be a writer even if it's only to purge the many thoughts that run through my head...it's something that i'm going to try. every writer has to start somewhere and my starting point is my blog. it may come to nothing, my words and writing style may become so mixed up that they only make sense to me & really i'm fine with that. but, i'm still going to try...that's all i can do. the hope is that i can at least empty out my brain each night before bed so that maybe i'll fall asleep faster & possibly put everything together in some coherent fashion.

so, here i go venturing down another path, because it goes along so well with all the other started but never finished ventures that i've tried in the past. i'm horribly good at starting new things...it's the finishing that seems to elude me so often.

finally, finally, finally...

i'm finally getting around to updating my blog! i'd like to say that i've just been so busy with the kids, sewing, making things, selling things, etc...but alas, it all comes down to my laziness! i am a lazy person and have finally come to accept that part of myself...i really have tried to change, but it's just too hard & quite frankly, i've given up. so now i am fully embracing my laziness & sprinkling in some productivity throughout the day just to seem like i'm doing something!

my productive thing for today, other than laundry & toilet cleaning (yippee.), is to finally try out one of the many sewing patterns i have purchased over the last six months or so. and as an added bonus, i'm going to blog about said pattern and post pics of the completed item. i'd like to say that this will be a regular thing, but my laziness will more than likely kick in & i'll only make it through one project (maybe 2 if i really try).

so, now i'm off to make a skirt for jordan...just have to decide which skirt pattern i'm going to attempt first.