rugby blanket!

Christina, the Sometimes Crafter (in my opinion "sometimes" is really the wrong word here) has a fantastic Rugby Blanket pattern and ebook. i absolutely love creating from what she has created! now, i have crocheted before and after reading through her book i wish that i had had her book before i had ever picked up a crochet hook. her instructions and pictures are pretty much unlike anything i have ever seen before.



if you are looking to learn how to crochet i highly recommend getting her book. i would not say that i am an experienced crocheter by any means (and i did make some noticeable mistakes in this blanket) however the best thing about buying a pattern from the sometimes crafter is that she will not abandon you when you need help! which is quite unlike buying books from craft or book stores.
i really loved the brown in her blanket, however i was generously given an enormous amount of yarn:
from sam's parents, and well- when you have all of this yarn just lying around it is really a better idea to use what you have then buy new stuff.
of course, i won't be applying that principal to fabric.
so back to the blanket- if you are looking to learn, or looking for a new pattern- check her out. you won't be disappointed!

best zucchini muffins

i love zucchini. i didn't always, but as an adult i grew to develop a liking, and then a loving of it. sam's parents just made (is that the right word to use?) a beautiful garden. and in it are (obviously, i mean what am i posting about after all?) zucchini.

me so happy.

what makes me even more happy? when a friend wanders over with a zucchini from her garden and its as big as a good sized butternut squash ( in fact for these muffins, i only needed that one zucchini).

we are going to be out for a couple of days this week, and i needed to cook through this zucchini more it went to waste.

after i had henry, another friend had brought us a loaf of really delicious zucchini bread (this was my first ever encounter with any zucchini baked goodness) and with that memory in my mind, i decided i wanted to try to make muffins.

why muffins and not bread? a very silly reason, i am still adhering to the points system of weight watchers, and it quite simple to know how many a servings a recipe makes when you can count individual muffins, instead of trying to guesstimate with slices.

sadly, i am not super inventive in the kitchen. however, i am have mad skills when it comes to "googling", and i was directed to Simply Recipes where Elise Bauer (as a 24 fan, gotta love the last name) had posted a truly fantastic recipe for Zucchini Muffins.

as stated before, i am not inventive in the kitchen, so i stuck to the recipe- except that i used whole wheat pastry flour (i use it in almost all of my baking) and didn't add walnuts and craisens. they are wonderful right out of the oven... they tasted ok the next day... but definitely good enough to make again!

this love for zucchini.... i have a few of my own zucchini inspired creations (plus one that is floating in my brain) perhaps several zucchini posts are in order????

7 years.

last week sam and i celebrated our 7 year anniversary. sam had 2 little surprised planned for me. we don't usually do presents but he had secretly saved up some driving money (he gets paid for every mile he drives for starbucks, and i have never seen this money and i always just assumed it was being spent on food) and had bought me the new ipod shuffle.

pretty cool, huh? a blackberry and an ipod shuffle? i sure am becoming a techno gadget kinda gal.

second surprise?

he was taking me here for dinner. you can't really tell from the website, but the Rainbow Lodge is a fairly big deal up here. and i had never been before.

so we dropped the older two kids off at paul and donna's and headed the hour to the restaurant.

the following story is being told to help other couples not go through our little disaster.

Problem 1: driving an hour at bedtime with a 3 month old in the car.

henry fussed on and off the entire drive, it really set the mood.

Problem 2: making sure the restaurant is truly serving food.

sam had called and made reservations. we arrived early to the lodge. and it was pretty dang dead. as we unloaded and walked in, a beautiful menu was posted to the door. glorious food options were offered.

we entered, and were greeted by: no one.

eventually a waitress found us, brought us back- not to the actually dinning room, but to the lounge in the back, where we were given a bar menu. come to find out that the lodge doesn't serve dinner on thursdays or mondays. and we were there on a monday. you'd think they would have told sam that when he called to make reservations.

so we ordered chicken tenders to split (sam was starving) in the hopes that we could try another restaurant back in town.

Problem 3: trying a new restaurant that hasn't been given glorious reviews.

so henry was still overly tired, and we were pushing 8pm when we arrived back to town. we had debated getting a couple of our old faithful favorites, but decided to just try something new. a restaurant that had just opened up a few blocks from our house.

we pulled in, were seated instantly.

and received terrible service, food served all at once (instead of spread out) and for entertainment got to watch the teenagers who were working in the kitchen basically dry hump all evening long.

the salad was watered down, the garlic bread consisted of 2 ingredients: bread and butter, and my chicken marsala tasted like noodles just cooked in oil, with mushrooms and chicken thrown in.

it was so disgusting.

and henry was screaming bloody murder, so i ended up enjoying our anniversary outside on the curb.

we gave up and headed home. sam dropped me and henry off, and went to get the other two. he brought home a screaming mason (who was pretty darn sick).

so there we were, 10pm, both exhausted and disappointed. and i was starving. i had saved all my points (weight watchers) for our special evening, and hadn't really eaten anything for dinner.

i was able to nurse my wounds with a root beer float. that was my food highlight.

so what lessons can you learn from this? sam and i sat down the next day and discussed our mishaps:

1) you should never try a new restaurant on a special night. you won't be disappointed, there are always times to try new things, but keep special nights special with things you know are good.

2) you should not bring overly tired babies to new restaurants- it truly affects the ambiance.

3) you shouldn't bring a baby on a special night. if you can't leave the baby at home, the celebrate your special night with take out. we should have eaten locally, then we could have left little henry as well.

there will be several make-ups for this failed attempt at a dinner out, so we aren't to terribly disappointed. we have years of special nights ahead of us. and we won't make these mistakes again!

sam and i,

standing in the same place we were married 7 years earlier.

a curious case of bumming me out.

we shall consider this my first "review". what will i be reviewing you may ask? well, whatever i think others may be interested in hearing something about.

starting out- the curious case of benjamin button.

***if you have not seen the movie, and want to- you should probably not read this post, as i will be revealing parts of the movie.

first off: when your bff tells you a movie is so-so, you should probably take that as a clue to just do the norm- and watch re-runs of Law and Order. but do i listen? do i pay attention to some carefully given pieces of wisdom? nope. instead i subject both myself and my husband to 2 1/2 hours of this movie.

now don't get me wrong- the movie is really well done. excellent in fact. really interesting story, the actors do a fairly good job portraying their roles, not a ton of swearing, a couple of inappropriate scenes- but other than that, a movie that i could of thoroughly enjoyed.

if it hadn't of bummed me out so much, that even today (hours after watching it) i feel depressed to all heck.

if you've been living a land free of tv, i'll remind you of the plot: benjamin button is born an old man (actually a baby, but the baby is old, old, old) and lives his life in reverse.

1st thing that depressed me: the depiction of benjamin born as a baby. talk about sad. especially when i had a sleeping beautiful boy in the next room who i immediately wanted to go and hold and cuddle.

2nd thing: how absolutely everyone that benjamin gets to know eventually dies before him old, while he continues to get younger.

3rd: he and his love (daisy) have a stinkin' baby girl. who after a year- he decides to leave because it would be to hard to grow young while she grew old. yeah, if i cried during movies i would have been an absolute mess.

4th: watching benjamin slowly turn into a child... toddler... baby and then die as a baby, all while daisy is taking care of him- her an old women, him a little tiny baby. yup, watching that little baby close his eyes in the end left a pretty huge boulder in my gut that still has yet to leave.

so, i believe that is why i am writing this post. to hopefully get all of my thoughts about this movie out of my system, and then be able to get out of my funk, and take on my day.

i am not sure what the point of this movie was supposed to be. i've heard some say, that youth is wasted on the young. ok. whatever.

like i said, the movie is well done. its the content that just stinks. it is so sad. i know all movies aren't supposed to have us rolling around in laughter. but i would at least like to watch a movie that leaves me feeling some sort of happy.

i thought that movies were supposed to be entertaining? that we were supposed to walk away with a smile on our face and something to talk about.

maybe, i am just learning what is entertaining to me. movies that make me feel extra sad about life and circumstances just do not entertain my anymore. maybe that is changed since i became a parent... i don't know.

so if you haven't seen it- i wouldn't waste your time on something that will most likely just leave you feeling really down. i feel awful- especially because i subjected sam to 2 1/2 hours of a movie- a movie with themes he just hates.

so... i no longer watch scary/horror movies and now, i no longer watch thematic sad, depressing movies.

sticking to pixar and law and orders.

**if there are horrid spelling/grammar errors- i apologize, but all 3 children would like me not to be blogging right now.