gettin' crafty with it

Irene came and went and boy, are we glad she's gone!

Our pre-hurricane preparations were not in vain as the storm hit hard in our neck of the woods.  Once the eye of the storm passed through, our power went out and while Jon manned the house (namely, working closely with neighbors to prevent the serious flooding in our cellars to become too damaging), Evelyn and I kept busy indoors.

[By the way - major props to Jon and our neighbors for their true display of old fashioned "neighborly-ness."  By working together, they kept a bad situation from getting worse.]

About five hours into lost power, I set Evelyn up with some play-dough while I made my first attempts at creating fabric flowers.  I've long admired the beautiful jewelry that many bloggers/etsy-site owners create with their fabric florettes so I thought it'd be fun to give it a try.  Why not, right?  I had plenty of time (although no access to an online tutorial - ack!).

So here they are!  I don't pride myself on being crafty AT ALL so this was a pretty big accomplishment!  And, I ended with a pretty cute ring in the process!

It was nice to bid adieu to Irene with a bit of loveliness adorning my right hand!

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here she comes

Oh, Irene.

I suppose we're ready.  Our cellar has been emptied.  Our pond has been drained a bit (not too much to make the koi uncomfortable but hopefully enough to prevent pond flooding).  The extraneous items on our property (grill, hammock, patio chairs, lawn ornaments, etc.) have been secured in the garage.  Lanterns, flashlights, and candles are on the kitchen counters, ready to be quickly accessed.  Batteries and other "essentials" have been purchased.  Local officials are issuing driving bans for the next few days so our pastor needed to cancel church.  I just finished making several phone calls off of the church directory to let them know of this cancellation (ah, the duties of a council president).

Now we wait.

On the plus side?  Well, our local library has every season's box set to one of my favorite childhood television series: Road to Avonlea.

Anyone else an Avonlea junkie as a kid?  My mom, sister, and I tuned in to this Disney Channel program every Sunday night for seven seasons.  It's been great fun to re-discover this series and I'm already on the second disc to the third season.  In fact, I just watched the episode to which the above photo is taken (Aunt Olivia's wedding to Jasper).  So until the power goes out, I'll be finishing up season three and moving onward to season four.  Jon's even enjoying it a bit, although he mercilessly makes fun of the soundtrack (too many woodwinds, especially bassoon, for his liking . . . apparently)!


I mentioned our pond up above.  Here is a picture of it . . . we love our gigantic koi!

  
The pond is directly next to our cellar door so if it overflows, it'll drain right on down . . . and if the power goes out, our poor sump pump will not be able to "save the day" as in previous instances.  I hope our fishies bury themselves in the mud in order to ride out the storm, otherwise they may find themselves swimming in the hot water tank!

Stay safe, everyone!

 

veggie lasagna

YUM!

Weight Watchers designated this week's theme to be "Go Meatless" (or something along those lines -- I'd have to pull out my weekly to be sure).  Part of our meeting, with my fabulous leader Chellay, was spent discussing yummy meatless dinner ideas and some inspiration was really flowing to me!

This afternoon, while planning out our weekly dinner menu, I decided to search out a new vegetarian lasagna recipe.  I've made my own spinach lasagna plenty of times but really wanted to branch out, especially since veggies are so fresh and plentiful this time of year!

My search landed me with an AMAZING Weight Watchers recipe.  I would HIGHLY recommend this one!  As always, I adapted the recipe a bit to our own liking, but here's the general gist . . .

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Roast assortment of veggies with garlic, olive oil, and fresh basil for 25 minutes, or until very tender (stirring often).  Our veggie assortment consisted of one small eggplant, one zucchini, one yellow squash, three roma tomatoes, one small onion, shredded carrots, mushrooms, and two sweet red peppers. 
3. Pour half of your roasted vegetables into your blender (be sure that they're very tender).  Add about a half cup of water and puree.  
4. Meanwhile, you've boiled your whole grain lasagna noodles.  I needed 11 to fit three layers in my baking dish.
5. Layer your lasagna, from bottom to top: puree, noodles, puree, roasted veggies, fresh (shredded, part-skim) mozzarella, fresh shredded parmesan, noodles, puree, roasted veggies, cheese, noodles, puree, cheese.
6. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until bubbly.

Seriously, we gobbled this yup (lil' two year old Evelyn, included)!  I invited my sister over to dinner and she raved about it, too, which can be a rare occurrence!

I did manage to take a few pictures, albeit not many.  Regretfully, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, as I was rushing to feed my hungry lil' one!

Roasted Vegetables

Bottom layer of Veggie Puree.

I think this is the third layer??

OH!  And did I mention that each serving (of what I cut - 12 servings in my pan) were only 4 POINTS PLUS?!?!?!  Such a lovely Sunday supper on this late [and rainy] summer evening!

Sunny Days

It was nearly a year and a half ago, but the other day, I received yet another compliment on Evelyn's first birthday party from March of 2010. She was just getting into Sesame Street, so we appropriately appointed the theme as "Sunny Days."

Here's some inspiration for any of you who are thinking of throwing a Sesame Street themed birthday party for your little girl . . .

We went with an orange and pink color scheme to bring a little originality to the Sesame Street party.  Orange = Evelyn's favorite color (even then) and the pink brought a bit of femininity.

Evelyn's all-natural smash cake.

Cookie Monster obviously wanted to hang with the desserts!

The birthday girl and her proud parents.

Since this is one and a half years ago, I was still carrying the 50+ lbs I have since lost on Weight Watchers.

The "piece of resistance" = Ernie's Rubber Duckie Punch!