Royalty

I found a website yesterday with some lovely drawings of Famous Kings and Queens of England. I bookmarked them to print out later to add to our Book of Time for homeschool.

I've also encountered some of these same Royals as I've researched my family tree! The ones that are so far back that probably everybody with British ancestry is a descendent of them some way! It's amazing who you run into when you research your family history online. I take it all with a grain of salt, but I do find it fascinating. Got to be descended from somebody!

Menu Plan Monday

So I got my blog moved, and have set up housekeeping (at least partly... still working on it!). I would like to blog more often but I have a hard time thinking of things to write about. Sorry, not gonna do the "diary" thing where I write out all the things that are going on in my life. The internet is just way too public for that! I know some people feel comfortable doing that, but I just don't.

One thing I've come across recently that I want to try is to have a daily theme. Apparently there are blogs that host these themes and if you post on the theme topic then you can link to that blog and get more traffic to yours. Something like that. Seems kinda cool, and I have found some homemaking ones that look interesting. So to start off with, I'm going to try:





I haven't done regular menu planning in... well, ever... occasionally, yes, but regularly, no.
However, the times I have done it sure make things run more smoothly! This will be a good habit to get into. Besides, my daughter is interested in doing most of the cooking lately (Yay!) so this will help give her a little direction. So, here's the plan for this week. I'll let you know next Monday how closely we stuck to it!

Monday: omelets and hashbrowns
Tuesday: fast food as I will probably be running errands
Wednesday: sloppy joes, tater tots, carrots
Thursday: pasta dish, green veggy
Friday: pizza (family game night)
Saturday: tacos
Sunday: roast venison with potatoes and carrots, green salad

Click on the "Menu Planning Monday" banner for a list of more blogs that are participating in this theme today!
Please post comments in the box to the right. Thanks!

Blogging...

After trying out just about every free blog-hosting site I came across in the past few months, I've decided to just move my blog to my own domain. I have been using Xanga for several years, and have dabbled around with others, but none of the freebie-sites offer the design flexibility I want. I already pay for my own domain and I have plenty of space there, so it occurred to me to just build my own blog page. The thing is, I don't know enough html to build such a thing from scratch, but I came across this lovely layout at This Side of Heaven Graphics! It was just the thing I was looking for. (Thank you, Pam!)

I've been piddling around with it for 2 or 3 days. I know I'll be adding more to it soon, but I think it's far enough along to go ahead and post it. Besides, the weekend is about over, and I need to get back to my "real" work! Enough "play time" for this week!

Mug and Muffin

Our church family had a "Mug and Muffin" social last night. We all were to take our favorite mugs and a batch of our favorite muffins. The hostess provided a selection of hot beverages and we had a variety of muffins to choose from. I thought that was a neat idea. My daughter made the muffins! She chose to make Cappuccino Muffins... which she had made for my birthday in November... and Fruit Surprise Muffins... a recipe from her latest American Girl magazine. Both were delicious!

Cappuccino Muffins
(from the 2000 Taste of Home Annual Recipes cookbook)

Espresso Spread:
4 ounces cream cheese, cubed
1 T. sugar
1/2 t. instant coffee granules
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 c. miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Muffins:
2 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
1 c. milk
2 T. instant coffee granules
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
3/4 c. miniature semisweet chocolate chips

In a food processor or blender, combine spread ingredients; cover and process until well blended. Cover and refrigerate until serving. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl, stir milk and coffee granules until the coffee is dissolved. Add butter, egg and vanill; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 375 for 17-20 minutes or until muffins test done. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Serve with espresso spread. Yield: about 14 muffins (1 c. spread).

Fruit Surprise Muffins
(slightly modified from American Girl magazine, March/April 2007)
1 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar, plus a little extra
1 T. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 c. lemon juice
1 egg
1/2 c. raspberries
1/2 c. blueberries (we used huckleberries)

Preheat oven to 400. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix together butter, lemon juice, and egg. Add dry ingredients into butter mix and stir. Fill muffin cups about a third of the way up. Put a few berries in the muffin cups. Cover the berries with the rest of the muffin batter. Sprinkle muffins with sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes until slightly brown. Makes one dozen.

Shawl

My "most recently started" knitting project is a "Light and Lovely Boucle Wrap" using a free pattern from Joann's. One of my friends was knitting this shawl last week using a different yarn than the pattern called for, but I was curious to see what the "Rainbow Boucle" yarn was like. I stopped by Joann's to take a look. It was lovely! And a HUGE 11 ounce skein (enough to make the whole shawl!) for $8. So I decided to try it. Then when I got up to check out, the cashier rang it up using a 40% off coupon which made it only $5! At that price, I can make shawls for everybody I know! (Okay, not really... but still... that's a great price for that much yarn!)

I bought the dark blue. I guess they call it "tonal". It's kinda like variegated but much more subtle. It starts of dark blue and then stays dark blue for yards and yards, gradually beginning to lighten just barely until it is eventually light blue, and then back again. (I assume. I haven't gotten that far along on the project yet.)

Other projects in the works include a sweater for my daughter (finished except for the the front band), and 2 different cotton throws. Yes, I will finish everything. I'm not one to start a bunch of projects and then never finish them. I just get bored working on the same thing all the time, so I switch back and forth between them! I read books the same way!