Who needs sleep?

Hello again, friends! I know it has been a long time since I've posted. I've been struggling with pretty severe insomnia for the last three weeks and I just haven't felt like myself. Insomnia, as you know if you've ever dealt with an extended run of it, is pretty much mental and physical torture. You feel rotten because you're not getting any sleep, and you get stressed out about trying to sleep because you don't want to feel rotten anymore. And over, and over, and over.

I finally saw the doctor last Thursday and his advice was to take Ambien for the next seven days, which was really not what I was hoping to hear. I've followed his advice because I don't know what else to do and because I was about to lose my mind, but it hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. The last three days, I've taken my Ambien at night but then have woken up in the early morning and spent the hours from then until 7 a.m. drifting fitfully between wakefulness and sleep. This morning, it was 4 a.m. I have no idea why the Ambien has stopped working--I had been taking it off and on in the two weeks before I saw the doctor and it always knocked me out for a good 8-9 hours. Though even when I was actually sleeping until 7 a.m. with it, I never felt good and rested during the day; it was just enough to keep me going. I've noticed that as soon as the sun goes down, my energy levels plummet too.

I truly believe my body has just gotten itself into a really bad sleep habit and that somehow I can break the habit and relearn the good sleep habits I had before the insomnia started. When the insomnia began, I was falling asleep just fine but waking up in the middle of the night for hours. Then it progressed to being unable to fall asleep. When it hit the low point a week ago, I actually spent one entire night without being able to fall asleep for one single minute, which was pure torture.

I'm worried what will happen when my seven days of Ambien stops--tomorrow is supposed to be the last night. The doctor prescribed that hoping that seven days of sleep would 'reboot' my body and things would get back to normal. I am afraid that I don't think he will be correct. I'm trying to think positively because I do believe that's a huge component in beating it. However it's hard to be positive when I'm exhausted but every time my body finally drifts off to sleep, I jerk out of it. For HOURS on end.

I've been kind of a zombie for these past three weeks. Lack of sleep has robbed me of the desire or motivation to do much beyond the very basics to keep my family and my house together. I hate feeling this way, and I just want more than anything to get back to normal and not have sleep be such a big ugly monster looming every single night. I want to get back to doing fun things and crafting and thrifting and all the things that I normally share on my blog. So Friends, if you are the praying or the positive-thinking types, would you mind sending one or both my direction that I can get things straightened out? I would appreciate it so, so much.

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder

I made this soup last night for dinner and liked it so much that I ended up making a pot to take to a friend today. She had a baby in the week after Christmas and just last Tuesday was back in the hospital for an emergency appendectomy! Poor girl, I know the last thing on her mind right now is making dinner, so I hope she enjoys this soup as much as we did. My kids even ate it, which is significant because they're picky little stinkers! Here's the recipe as written; I'll make note of my changes at the end.

Sweet Potato Corn Chowder from Midwest Living magazine

• 12 ounces andouille, kielbasa or smoked pork sausage, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch slices
• 1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
• 2 stalks celery, chopped (1 cup)
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (6 cloves)
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon Cajun or Creole seasoning
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 1 16 ounce package frozen whole kernel corn or 3 cups fresh sweet corn kernels
• 2 cups 1/2-inch cubes peeled sweet potato (about 2 small)
• 12 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. In a 6-quart Dutch oven, brown sausage over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add onion, celery and garlic. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Stir in flour, cumin, chili powder and Cajun seasoning. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Stir in chicken broth. Bring to boiling.
2. Add corn, sweet potatoes, and chicken. Return to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 20 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender. Stir in whipping cream and pepper; heat through. Makes 8 to 10 main-dish servings.

**Heidi's alterations:
*Most importantly, I halved the recipe. Half was plenty for my little family of 4, with about 3 bowls left over.
*I didn't want a lot of heat so I used smoked sausage made of turkey, beef and pork. I cut the pieces into quarters rather than halves so it would be more evenly distributed throughout the soup.
*I didn't have any Cajun or Creole seasoning, so I added a bit of paprika, dried onion powder, dried garlic powder, a tiny shake of cayenne, and some black pepper.
*I used drained canned corn instead of frozen or fresh.
*I just used one chicken breast, and didn't weigh it.

When I took it to my friend today, I accompanied it with a pan of Marie Callender's cornbread, which is my favorite. Usually I use a copycat recipe for it, but last week I found bags of the dried mix at Costco for around $3.00. Each bag makes 5 batches, so that's cheaper than I can make it from scratch!

It was a good winter meal, and one I'll definitely be making again!

Tebow Treat Time: Football Oreo Truffles and Embellished Soda bottles

Saturday was a big day here in Denver--the Denver Broncos played the New England Patriots that night in a big playoff football game. We've enjoyed cheering for the Broncos and especially Tim Tebow this year, so when a friend invited us over to watch the big game, I decided to make some fun treats to take along.

These are Oreo Truffles, rolled into the shape of footballs instead of regular round balls. I first saw these on Bakerella's blog WAY back before she hit the bigtime--probably around 2004-ish? It was on her old blog and there is 2008 Football truffle post on her current blog, but not the original one. When I first saw these way back then, I was blown away--I had been making Oreo Truffles on my own long before I ever saw them on her blog, but it never occurred to me that I could make them in other shapes! I've never had a good excuse for making them until now, and they were a big hit at our party.

If you've never made Oreo Truffles, you should! I like them far better than the cake balls or cake pops that Bakerella is famous for making popular. Oreo Truffles are made of two ingredients: a package of Oreo cookies (not Double-Stuf! it throws off the proportions) and a brick of cream cheese. Process the Oreos into crumbs, then add the cream cheese and process until it makes a thick paste. Roll them into balls (or footballs!), chill, then dip into chocolate. I use chocolate almond bark for dipping (not a fan of the Wilton melts in general unless I need colors) and vanilla almond bark with a teeny tiny #2 Wilton decorating tip to pipe the stripes and stitches.

Several months ago I was shopping at Marshall's and found 4-packs of this fun, bright-colored Jelly Belly soda. I bought the only two boxes of orange soda, intending to embellish them like I did in 2010

to give to Maren's teacher this past year for Halloween. However, I completely forgot about them until after Halloween! I couldn't just keep them for next year because they have an expiration date sometime this summer, but I really wanted to do something fun with them besides just, well, drinking them. When we were invited to the football party, I knew just what to use them for!

I didn't have enough of the Jelly Belly soda, so I ended up buying a few 6-packs of Orange Crush at Wal-Mart. I went very simple on these, since I knew they'd just be put in the recycling bin, and just cut strips of blue scrapbook paper and attached it to the bottles with double-sided tape.

They looked especially cute all lined up in my vintage Hires soda crate with orange lettering! Wal-Mart also carries 6-packs of Strawberry Crush, which you could similarly embellish for Valentine's Day.

In addition to the truffles and the sodas, I also took guacamole & chips (Wholly Guacamole gussied up with fresh chopped tomatoes & cilantro) and a batch of these delicious Strawberry-Rhubarb Bars. That may seem like a really out-of-season dish for January, but I have rhubarb in the freezer and strawberries were on sale this last week at Sprouts, so it wasn't strange at all! They were delicious.

Tebow and the Broncos lost spectacularly to the Patriots, an outcome which we didn't find altogether surprising. Still, it was fun to get together with friends and fun to have a chance to make cute food!

Weekend Junk finds: vintage Christmas, milk bottles and rhinestones

In the week after Christmas, I got to go antique shopping with my girlfriends, something I've always wanted to do! We went to a huge antique mall across town that is in an old grocery store space, so it's ridiculously huge. By the time you get halfway through, your eyes start to glaze over a bit, but it's a great place to go if you're looking for something specific--with so many vendors, you're bound to find it.

Because it was after Christmas, most vendors had sales in their booths and I was definitely motivated to help them unload their wares. ;) I was of course on the lookout for vintage Christmas:

And found these great old boxes with the items still in them. Someday I'd love to have a great Christmas packaging display like Shara has, but I've got a long way to go! I also bought a great box of vintage ornaments for $1.50 (hooray for 75% off!) but I didn't get a photo of those before I put them away.

One thing I was looking for on that trip and successfully found were milk bottles:

Because I'm starting a dairy. ;) Okay, no, but I have something in mind for them! I'd been looking on Etsy and eBay but since they're glass and heavy, shipping was always a killer. These were all discounted and less than $8 each, which I think was a great deal. The one in the middle I actually found on a different antiquing trip later that week, and it was only $2! Couldn't leave it behind for that price.

I hit the thrifts hard the week before Christmas when they put all of the Christmas decor on sale, but I didn't come up with much. I didn't have any BIG vintage Christmas thrift scores this year like I have for the previous two, so that was a bit disappointing. On one trip, I did find this gorgeous brooch:

It wasn't on sale and the full price was definitely more than I'd like to pay, so I woke up early on Christmas Eve morning and went back to the store because everything was 50% off that day. Well, almost everything, except--you guessed it--the brooch! Phooey! But I had been thinking about it constantly for two days (and dragged myself out of bed at 7:00 on Christmas Eve morning) and so I decided to treat myself to an early Christmas gift. It's absolutely gorgeous! You can't tell from the photo, but it's easily as big across as the palm of my hand. The stones are clear and beautiful and it sparkles like crazy! It's not marked but I can tell it is a nice quality piece. I paid more for it than I have for any of my other pretties, with the exception of Viola's jewels, but I think it was worth it.

The upshot is that while I was at the store buying my brooch, I found FIVE of the "It's A Wonderful Life" village houses that Melissa mentioned just a few days prior on 320 Sycamore. I would totally have passed them by if I hadn't read that post, but thanks to Melissa I knew to scoop them up (at 50% off, no less!) and now they're tucked away until I put them on eBay next Christmas. I think when I sell those next year I'll make enough to call my pretty brooch a true gift!

And just so that you don't think all I ever drag home is silly vintage stuff:

proof in the form of three Henckels knives that cost me an average of $1 each. They probably retailed for $30-45 apiece. A quick trip through my knife sharpener, and they are as good as new! My main chef's knife is a Henckels so finding these was a true score to me.

What's on your junking wish list for 2012?

Confession time, vintage ornaments and more stripey straws

Confession time: I did NOT get the tree or the last box of ornaments put away yesterday. I was too busy spending time with some girlfriends, hitting the thrift store, getting cupcakes with Maren, playing Just Dance 3 with my family and buying frames for our family portraits. Would you have wanted to give up one of those fun things to clean? I didn't either, which is why the tree is still standing in the front room! TODAY....I swear....

When I was taking off all of my beautiful vintage ornaments the other day, I couldn't resist snapping a few beauty shots:

Yum. And that's not even all of them!

Also, I forgot to show you all the cute new Christmas stocking that I ordered this year:

I ordered it from this Etsy shop: Bebe Sniklefritz. She's somewhat local so even though I ordered it late, I managed to get it in time for Santa to fill it up on Christmas morning. I've loved her stockings since last year and this year I finally gave in and ordered. The stocking is nicely sewn and I am IN LOVE with the retro print and of course the aqua and red!

I'd love to order coordinating stockings for the other three in my family but I'm not sure I can get Maren and The Mister to go for it. Rats! Porter's not old enough to have become attached to his Pooh stocking, which was a last-minute Target buy a few years ago because I needed something. Maybe I'll just order one for him now before he knows any better!

One more thing, before I go back to the ornament mines...remember the bowl of paper straw bits that I had leftover after making my Striped Straw Wreath? (which, by the way, I'm totally leaving out for Valentine's Day!)

I knew I could make something fun out of them rather than just toss them in the recycling bin. I actually tried to get Maren to do it because I knew it would be easy enough for her, but she wasn't interested so I just did it myself. I used some yarn and some red plastic faceted beads from my stash and made this cute garland!

I just strung the straws and beads on the yarn preschool-style. It took no time at all, and I had enough straw bits to make a good 10 feet of garland. I hung it above a window, but next year I'm going to use it on my Christmas tree. I love how the straws look like peppermint sticks and the facets of the beads catch the light and add just a little bit of sparkle. Not bad for 'trash'!

Christmas 2011 wrap-up

 I've just been easing myself into this new year this past week. Would it shock you to know that my Christmas tree is still up? Oh, all the ornaments are off and it's shoved into the corner instead of in the middle of the window, but still. I worked hard on it on Friday, making approximately 452 trips up and down the basement stairs to put things away, but it wore me out and I had to take a break for the weekend. I'm determined to get it DONE today! I'm almost there, just one more box of ornaments to put away and the tree, so I'm ready to just get it over with. I am sorry to see the tree come down--it really was beautiful. I'm not quite ready to put up my Valentine's just yet, but I might put out a few winter-themed decorations in the meantime.

I did want to make a few notes about our Christmas. Last year, I was a mess. A stressed-out, unhappy mess and Christmas was not nearly the fun time it should have been. Really, I couldn't wait for it to be over so that I could just rest. Having Maren out of school from Thanksgiving until New Year's was a large part of that, as were The Mister going out of town, being involved in a swap, and a few other things in addition to the normal Christmas activities.

This year, I knew things had to be different. I started thinking about it in October, and trying to identify ways that I could make this year better and not turn into a crazy Christmas-hating shrew. I can't say that I made any major changes this year, but I can tell you that this Christmas season was SO much better than last year!

Things that were different this year: The Mister didn't go out of town, and Maren was only out of school for the traditional 2 weeks instead of 6. I tried to get gift ideas early and order things early, though I wasn't as successful at this as I would have liked. I didn't participate in any swaps, I did New Year's treats for our neighbor gifts so those could wait until after Christmas, and I didn't stress that I didn't get our family cards done until after New Year's (heck, they're still not here yet!). I did have one moment of minor freak-out when I started to panic about getting it all done, but it was averted by a kind husband who ran to the store and bought cookies at 9 pm when the homemade ones didn't turn out. But there were no locking-myself-in-the-bathroom sobbing fits like last year (or the year before), so I'm counting it as a victory!

Christmas Day itself was so much fun! The Mister and I kept looking at each other and commenting on how GREAT the day was. Even though we had to get the kids dressed and haul everyone to church at 11:00 a.m. this year because the day fell on a Sunday, the meeting was full of beautiful music and only added to the celebration of the day. The kids loved their gifts, and the gifts we got each other were thoughtful and surprising and much appreciated.

Our dinner was simple--I procrastinated until Christmas Eve morning so I had to take what I could find at the grocery store. I ended up with a ribeye roast (on 50% clearance, woo-hoo!) and it was delicious! Because I was only cooking for the four of us, two of whom hardly eat anything, I just made the things we like best: the meat, mashed potatoes, crab legs, and sparkling cider. I bought rolls and didn't even bother with veggies or Jello or anything else, including dessert. It was absolutely delicious and it was wonderful to not be stuck in the kitchen for hours.

Truly, on Christmas Day my heart was filled with JOY. I remember standing in the shower that morning before Church and thinking how blessed and lucky I am to have so much, and a family that loves each other, and a dear husband. I felt JOY in the reason we celebrate that day, that the Savior came to earth as a sweet baby.

Christmas 2011 was so wonderful that I'm determined to make Christmas 2012 even better! I didn't get to do much crafting and I didn't get as much listed in my Etsy shop this December as I had wanted. I think the key to making those things happen this next year is to get my gift shopping done by December 1. The coming up with ideas/shopping is absolutely the most stressful part of Christmas for me.

I have never been able to be one of those people who shops all year long and then is done by Thanksgiving. I'd like to, but I have birthdays, Mother's and Father's Day spread throughout the year so I feel like those take up any gift ideas I might come across. I don't know, maybe I just have really difficult people to shop for. I try really hard to come up with thoughtful, unique gifts for the people I love--I'm sorry, but I view gift cards as a cop-out so unless the circumstance is extreme, I'm loathe to go that route. This year I did put The Mister in charge of buying gifts for his own family, and that helped a ton as far as taking the stress off of me. I'm going to really make an effort this year to hunt down ideas and get them executed early! I truly do think that will give me less to worry and more time to enjoy the season.

A Very Pinterest Christmas

Hello, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful holiday--I did, more on that later!

How did I ever get along without Pinterest? I'm coming up on my year anniversary with my Beloved Pinterest, and I have it to thank for quite a few of the fun things I made this Christmas.

First was the gift we made for Maren's teacher, a Disney/Mickey Mouse nut. I first saw these cute Mickey Mouse Oreo cookies months ago and knew I wanted to do something with them for her Christmas gift.

Source: http://twopeasintheirpod.wordpress.com/

Instead of making pops, we just made cookies so that more would fit in the jar. Maren helped me pick the yellows out of 2 tubes of mini M&Ms for Mickey's buttons. We also decided to make some Minnie cookies, using Wilton pearls for the polka dots on her dress and two tiny heart sprinkles put together for her bow.

Then, Groopdealz had a deal for vinyl monograms, and the rest of the gift was taken care of! A visit to IKEA (not a quick visit--it's impossible to make a quick visit through that place) took care of the jar.

I hope she liked it. Actually--I hope she got it! I sent it to school with Maren the last day before break, and only found out later that the teacher was out that day. I hope maybe she stopped in before Christmas to pick it up.

Another gift I made was for The Mister's co-workers. Last year when the Christmas junk at Target went to 90% off, I found a big stack of Christmas cards that came in the niftiest tins with a clear plastic window in the top. They were originally $8.99. I immediately donated the cards, but kept the tins to use this year. When I Pinned this adorable Santa snack mix:

Source: http://cookiesandcups.com/santa-party-mix

I knew just what I would make to put in the tins!

The little Santa hats made from Bugles turned out so cute! I'd definitely make this again. This isn't one of the tins--I had a bit of leftover mix that we placed into cellophane bags with Santa ribbons for a few other people.

One of my church jobs is that I get to work with 8-9 year old girls. I pinned these glittery Christmas ornaments because they seemed easy enough for the girls to make successfully.

Source: http://thegreenbeanscrafterole.blogspot.com/2010/12/all-that-glittersminus-mess.html

I don't have a photo of the ornaments we made, but they turned out so great--they are so pretty and sparkly! The hardest part was finding the Pledge floor wax that you squirt inside the ornaments to get the glitter to stick. I found mine at my Commissary, but later I did see it at Wal-Mart. It costs almost $7 per bottle, but you only use a tiny bit for each ornament, so one bottle would last you a LONG time. Like, decades. Or, you can do what I did and let all of your friends pass around the bottle to make ornaments with their kids!

For breakfast a few mornings before Christmas, I made these fun, festive waffles:

Source: http://www.rutherfordfamilyhappenings.blogspot.com/2011/12/decorating-christmas-tree.html

only I have an aversion to artificially-green foods, so I left the green food coloring out of our waffles.

I didn't have blueberries or raspberries, but I did have blackberries and pomegranate arils to decorate mine, complete with a dusting of powdered sugar snow.

Earlier in December, I also made this cute banana snowman treat for the kids:

Source: http://littlestlearners.blogspot.com/2011/01/eeeeeeeeeekkkkk.html

though again, I didn't take a photo of my own version before the kids gobbled them up, but we used mini chocolate chips for the eyes and buttons.

For Maren's class party at school, we had the kids make these cute snowmen out of tongue depressors.

Source: http://adayofwonders.blogspot.com/2009/12/advent-book-activity-snowmen-at-night.html

Since it's not technically a "Christmas" party, we went with the winter theme and this craft was perfect!

For time's sake, I prepainted the sticks and we used hot glue to attach the buttons, felt scarf and the ribbon hanger.

And one last gift, this one for the ladies I visit each month. I actually didn't Pin these clever soap bottle tags until after Christmas, but we didn't visit our ladies until then so it was okay.

Source: http://darlingdoodles.blogspot.com/2011/12/12-days-of-gift-mas-gift-1.html

I love free printables!  This link includes a free printable sheet with the cute tags and I used my scalloped circle punch to cut them out.

I actually still had bottles of last year's Christmas-scented soap that I bought during BB&W's big clearance in January. Soap doesn't go bad, so I didn't feel weird giving it this year. If I'd had more time to prepare, I would have included a cute festive hand towel to make it a more substantial gift. Next year!

Whew! Seriously, what would I have done without Pinterest?