creative little daisy

It's gotta be the drugs...

I'm all hopped up on steroids and getting things done like nobody's business. I felt the beginnings of something settling in my chest this past weekend, so I started taking some prednisone. For something to be so bad, that stuff is SO good. If you've ever had any problems resulting from inflammation and taken prednisone, you know what kind of magic it works. I have energy like a toddler, I breath so much easier, and have absolutely no joint pain. Can you say miracle drug? The only problem is, for all the good it does, it does equal amounts of bad, so I can't take it for long periods of time. I just enjoy the ride when I do and make the most of the burst of energy.

I've just about finished the bedroom.

I made some shams.

some fabric art,

and fabric covered balls.

I want to make a throw quilt for the end of the bed, and I think I'll call it done.

While I was working on the bedroom, for a little diversion, I decided to rearrange the living room. A little background- I used to be famous (or infamous) for frequently rearranging furniture. A combination of lack of options for furniture placement in this house and lack of energy has resulted in very little moving about of large furniture in the past 10 or so years. I'm telling you, I may be a small woman, but there was a time when I'd think nothing of moving the refrigerator if I felt it would look better across the room. Those days are long gone, except for the occasional prednisone induced surge of energy. Not long ago I found a site that's part of the HGTV website called Rate My Space. Fun stuff! I had so much fun looking at rooms, I decided to add a few of my own. You know how I like to join a party. Anyway, the first couple of comments I got sounded kinda like this. This room really needs a rug....the furniture placement could be better.... try this...do that.... My first reaction what Who the heck asked you? Then I remembered, duh...it's called Rate My Space, I guess I asked. I really didn't think of the rating aspect of it when I added the photos and initially I told myself, that's their opinion, they don't live here... but it stayed in the back of my mind and you know, I agree. The furniture arrangement wasn't a very cozy one, it just seemed to be the best one for the layout of the room. Sunday afternoon I pulled the couch out to vacuum the dust bunnies from underneath and behind, the sort of thing prednisone can lead an otherwise lazy person to do, and decided to try a different layout. Guess what? I think the RMS commenters knew exactly what they were talking about.

I swapped the positioning of the sofas and moved one away from the wall.

I wasn't sure about the traffic flow, but there's plenty of room to walk behind.

I moved a few other pieces and made a cover for the top of my great grandmother's sewing machine. (Energy overflowing, I tell ya!)

And just to prove it's not me, it's the meds, look what I did today,

Just because I saw this one and couldn't resist. (have I told you I don't like to cook?)

I was beginning to think the spirit of Martha Stewart had taken over my body, but dinner time rolled around, and I was relieved (sort of) to know, that I'm still me.

Frozen pizza anyone?* That's my piece with the peppers and onions. 

OK- I failed the dinner challenge. I made it two days, then it was the night before Casey's birthday and Mitch and I had to go shopping- so we ate in town. Then it was Casey's birthday (18!!) and we had pizza and cake and chips- then it was Saturday and Sunday, I don't cook on those days. I did cook last night, but after skipping 4 nights, I figured I was too long gone to redeem myself.

Dinner Challenge: chicken parmesan with penne pasta

chicken parmesan with penne pasta
Originally uploaded by creativelittledaisy

So far in this challenge I have cooked each night (so what if it's only been two nights), using what I had on hand, but I haven't branched out much. I guess I'm not a very adventurous cook. This dish is easy, pretty much a requirement for me. You'll find I'm really lousy at writing instructions when it comes to cooking. I apologize in advance for any confusion brought on by reading this.

What I used (I'm not going to include quantities, because you can just use as much or little as you need)
Boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders
Italian breadcrumbs
Canned spaghetti sauce
Tomato sauce
Penne pasta
Parmesan cheese
Grated mozzerella cheese

Get a little oil heating in your pan, I'd say about 1/2 inch, not enough to deep fry the chicken, but not so little that it all sticks to the pan
Dredge the chicken in the bread crumbs to coat both sides
Once the oil is good and hot put your breaded chicken in.
Fry on both sides until you have a nice golden brown crust happening.
Meanwhile you should have started boiling some water for the penne. Cook that according to the package to your desired tenderness. It's probably a good idea to remove it just before it's completely done, because it will finish cooking in the oven
Once your pasta is tender and your breasts are golden you can throw it all together in a large casserole dish.
Pasta goes in first. Cover with canned sauce. Mine wasn't quite enough so I added a can of tomato sauce.
Put chicken on top, cover with foil and place in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. Long enough for everything to get nice and bubbly.
Remove foil and sprinkle on lots of cheese and place back in oven just long enough to melt cheese.
Serve with a salad or if you happen to have peas leftover from last night, like I did, you can heat those in the microwave open a can of pears (I'm using what I have) and call it dinner.

Wednesday post part 2, a bit of this and that...

Busy, busy, busy. I've been busy getting my room back together. That's where the flooring was going if I forgot to mention. Yes, on a whim (well sort of) the master bedroom got a makeover. The carpet had to go. Had. To. Go.  What a waste it would be of an open room not to paint while all the furniture was out. One thing leads to another with these projects.

I'm so pleased with the laminate and the new wall color and I've been happily making new curtains and changing things up. It was time for a change. The old curtains were so heavy and dark and full of dust. I'm sure removing those and the carpet did wonders for the air quality. The paint color is Blue Rain from Lowes (Waverly Classics). Initially my plan was to do the bedding and curtains in black and white and accent with silver here and there, instead I decided to go with shades of grey.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to photograph curtains? At night the lighting is bad, during the day, it's too bright. This was taken at dusk and it isn't very good. The color isn't coming across quite right, but the top part is a silvery grey sheer flowy fabric. The bottom is  pewter with a slight sheen. Both were clearance fabrics. The band across the bottom was one of those happy accidents. I forgot the old measure twice cut once rule, a mistake I'm glad to have made.

I found the perfect silvery grey velvet to reupholster the headboard, also in the clearance section.

My sister-in-law gave me a pair of pine bedside tables that will be painted black, I still have to decide on some sort of quilt/coverlet/duvet, maybe some art, I have a mirror to paint silver....so much work- so much fun!

On the subject of work and fun, I started a flickr group for sharing projects that make the most of your skills, not your checkbook. Liz posted just such a project today.  I love the way she described the thrill that comes with taking what was trash and making it a treasure. Go check out the high on skills, low on cash projects and add yours too. The more the merrier!   

Wednesday post part 1- Dinner Challenge

Have you heard about Carrie's dinner challenge? I could use a little kick in the pants when it comes to cooking dinner, thanks Carrie! Here's what I came up with for dinner last night. I am going to challenge myself to cook every night this week, to try to use only food from my freezer or pantry and to try some new recipes. Last night we had pressure cooker pork chops with rice and peas.

A pressure cooker is the procrastinating chef's best friend. Mine is electric and can also be used as a slow cooker. I put these pork chops in the cooker partially frozen- cooked for 18 minutes and they were fall apart tender. I just winged this one, no recipe, but here's the rundown-

For the pork chops you'll need:

A pressure cooker
5 large pork chops
Black Pepper
1 envelope of dry onion soup mix
1 can beef broth

Give the chops a shake or two of pepper on both sides then brown in a little oil. Once they are lightly browned (just a minute or two on each side) cover with onion soup mix. Add just a little water- for 5 large chops, I added about 1/2 cup of water. Put the lid on and wait for the cooker to pressurize, then reduce the temperature enough to maintain pressure. I set a timer for 18 minutes and threw 2 cups of rice in my rice cooker (yea, I'm a sucker for kitchen appliances that have automatic in their name).  After 18 minutes I unplugged the cooker and let it sit for ~ 10 minutes, long enough for the pressure to release. By now the rice is nearly done.  Remove the pork chops from the cooker, leaving the yummy juices behind. Turn the temperature back up to get the juices bubbly and add about 2 tablespoons of flour, stirring constantly. Once the flour is blended, add 1 can of beef broth. I also threw in about 1/4 cup of red wine- just to increase the fancy factor a bit. Reduce the heat to a simmer and return pork chops to the sauce/gravy. Couldn't be easier, the pork chops were full of flavor, melt in your mouth tender and the entire meal took less than 30 minutes to prepare.

He works

We supervise

and contemplate


I told Mitch the floor is looking great, but there's a problem with the wall. They don't complement each other. He informed me they do in fact complement each other. He heard them.

I got a new rug

When what I needed was new pants. And socks.
I've been tagged by Tamy to list 7 random things about myself, so let the randomness begin. Try to contain your excitement.

1. So yea, I got a new rug for the kitchen. Actually 2 rugs. They were buy one get one free at Kohls. I wish I had all the money I've spent on kitchen and bathroom rugs over the years. 

2. My pants have a really big hole in the leg. I only have three pair of jeans that fit me and these are one of them. To some people three pair of jeans may seem like a lot, but those people probably have other clothes they wear. Not me. Jeans are pretty much it. Except on Sunday, when I do wear a dress or nice pants to church. I don't have any nice pants that fit either. I've lost quite a bit of weight this past year. No I wasn't trying.

3. Very well meaning people frequently come up to me and say things like You are too skinny! You need to eat more! I end up just standing there looking at them, uncomfortable, not knowing what to say.  How am I supposed to respond to that? I would never walk up to someone and say You're fat. You need to step away from the table. Why do people feel like it's ok to tell someone they are too skinny? I know they mean no harm, but I never know how to reply.

4. The tv was on this afternoon and I heard Oprah talking about a grilled cheese sandwich and I stopped what I was doing and made myself one. Mine had swiss and chipotle cheddar. Yum!

5. Mitch and I went to see Motley Crue a week after Casey was born. How random is that?  He was born by C-section, so I was pretty miserable.

6. When I was in junior high school, I used to go roller skating every weekend. I even went to an all night skate once. Can you imagine roller skating all night long? I did. Me and my best friend April. Funny eh? Autum and April.  I wasn't born in Autumn and she wasn't born in April. She was born on the first day of Autumn.

7. I'm really tired of hearing about what Britney Spears is doing. I feel sorry for her, and think she really, really needs to get some help, but I don't think it should be Breaking News that she showed up to court 3 hours late, then left and went to the mall to get something to eat.

Could that list be any more random?

On the subject of news, while I don't think Britney's latest escapades is worthy of mention on the 6 o'clock news, the search for this guy is. I hope they find him soon.

Bummed about that gut?

If you haven't seen the Peyton Manning Priceless Peptalk commercials, here's a little funny for ya.

Thanks to ya'll I didn't strike a lick.

Yet another southern saying. It means I didn't do a thing. Didn't get my work done. I didn't strike a lick because I've been too busy laughing my behind off at the hilarious comments on my country girl post. There's nothing like speaking the native language to bring my southern sisters out of the woodwork, huh? I'm not sure how you other folks from the south feel about it, but to me, there is some comfort in being able to be yourself, saying what comes naturally to you, even if it isn't correct or proper according to the English books.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to become a poster child for Jeff Foxworthy, but it felt good to let it all hang out and have a few laughs with others who not only get being from the south but also appreciate and embrace it. Too often in the media, being southern is portrayed as not being intelligent. LLA and I discussed this a bit last year when she visited me. Somehow the movie Borat was brought up. I've not seen it, but she has, correct me if I'm wrong Cookie, from what I remember, you had a problem with the way the movie portrayed southern people because it made them look slow and well... stupid because they didn't seem to catch on to the fact Borat was jerking them around. If you are southern you would recognize what seemed to be ignorance was actually more a likely an effort on their part to be polite and helpful and not as quick to call out the fact that this guy was just a jerk- that famous southern hospitality in action.

Our slow speech and admittedly less than proper use of the English language gives the impression of simple-mindedness. Being someone who has not ventured far from my little corner of the world, I'm aware that my lack of experience may come across as a lack of intelligence, so I have my guard up to some degree. I agreed to do a podcast interview a while back and as soon as it sunk in that I would actually be speaking, not typing my answers, the panic set in. I was so worried about how I would sound and what I would say when backspace and delete were not options.

I joked about showing my hick roots in that last post, but really (and I can only speak for me, not all southern girls) the perception that talking slow = thinking slow, is something I'm mindful of and for that reason try very hard not to come across as a back woods country bumpkin. My spelling and grammatical errors (and I know they are many) are more a reflection of my lack of attention and effort in grade school than my intelligence or heritage. All that babble to say, it was so much fun to just let loose and let my southern freak flag fly and then to have so many join my party. I mean really, how can you not love someone who complains that a neighbor's cake is so dry, you'd poot flour? Priceless!

I bet you're wondering how the pictures tie in with this post. They don't, but what would? I don't think I shared any pictures of the whole kitchen after painting the cabinets and tiling the floor, so here they are. Not that I think you were hanging on the edge of your seats waiting to see my finished kitchen or anything. For the record, these photos were so totally staged, it's never this clean in real life.

Thank God I'm a country girl...

I was just taking a little break today and had a pack of nabs with my sweet tea, and I wondered how many folks would know what a nab was. Well do you?

Here are a few words and sayings that came to mind that are southern-speak. There are many I could list, but I'm going to limit this to things I either say myself or hear on a regular basis.

Reckon =  suppose. Mom, can I go outside? I reckon you can.

Fixin' to = getting ready to. I'm fixin' to jerk a knot in your ass.  OK, so I've never used this one. Never. It's a term used by a particularly frustrated parent with an out of control child. I've never actually had a knot jerked in my ass, but it's been threatened many times.

By the time someone threatens jerking knots, she is undoubtedly ill as a hornet or mad as a wet hen.

You could cause a parent to be ill as a hornet by acting like you don't have a lick of sense or like you didn't have no raisin' in public. You know, like you were born in a barn, running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
At this point I'm sure the parent will agree they've had a bait. Meaning you've had enough. I've had a bait of you. Of course, the f in of isn't pronounced, it's more like I've had a baitayou.

Directly = an increment of time, in the near future, shortly.  What time are you going to pick me up? I'll be there directly. 

If someone swannees, they...Well, I'm not sure what exactly it is to swannee- but I do it on a regular basis. Swannee and swear can be used interchangeably. It's a mild expression of frustration or surprise.  I swannee! 

A pigpickin' is a party that involves a whole pig being barbecued. This is done on a hog cooker and it's a long slow process resulting in some real good eatin'. My brother-in-law takes great pride in his hog cooking abilities.

If someone offers to give you some collard or turnip greens from their garden, they may ask if you want a mess of greens. Mess is a quantity, I'm not sure how much it is or if it's more or less than a peck.

I'm sure you've heard bless her heart. An insult is no longer an insult if you follow it with bless her/his heart. That poor girl looks like she's been beat with an ugly stick, bless her heart. See how that works?  Now rather than being an insult, it's a statement of concern.

My granny used to ask me if I was out of my cotton pickin' mind, which translates are you crazy?

She also told me to quit lollygagging if I was goofing off instead of doing my homework. Speaking of doing homework, if you're from the south, it's likely a grandparent has told you you can play after you get your lessons up.

If you don't have time to do a thorough job of cleaning house, you may just give it a lick and a promise.

In the south, a soda isn't called a pop, it's a drink. I'm gonna run in the store and get a drink (pronounced more like drank) and a pack of nabs.

If you take you mother to the doctor in your car, you say, I've gotta carry mama to the doctor. And the doctors office is probably in town, so you've gotta go to town to carry mama to the doctor.

Within the south, there are also sub-regions with region specific terms. Where my husband is from to inquire about your mode of transportation, he may ask, did you come on the truck or the car. What he means is did you drive the car or truck, because if you drove the truck he may get you to haul something. This is not one I use. I know you ride in a car not on it. But I'm from Cumberland county and he's from Sampson county and everyone knows we are much more sophisticated on this side of the river. (he-he, that's what I tell him anyway)

This was fun. I'm really revealing my hick roots and it don't bother me nary a bit.

Got any you want to share? How about where you're from?

I did it again!

I let my blog anniversary come and go without a thought, without a mention. It doesn't seem like I've been doing this for two years. My, my, where does time go? And why does it go so much faster the older you get? Why was it so easy for me to post, practically every day back then and now I do good to write a few words once a week? I enjoyed finding material in everyday things, taking a picture of a cake I made or raindrops on ferns. I don't seem to look at things with the same eyes I did then. I miss that. I think that looking at life through those eyes made even the mundane seem important somehow. Now it takes something a little more significant to make me want to take time to document its happening. Somewhere along the way the reason for posting shifted and I never even noticed. I began to filter more, to worry about offending or boring, when the initial desire to start this public diary was to document my everyday. My everyday, not the everyday I thought folks might be interested in. It was my way of saying here I am, this is me, this is what I'm about and what I do with my time. It's what I find interesting and important or what is bugging me. It's what frustrates, frightens, enlightens or delights me. It's my world and what happens in it. That's what I wanted this blog to be and somewhere along the line, just like so many things in life, it got off course, slightly changed direction without me even noticing. With the awareness that there were more than a hand full of people reading my words, I became more careful with the words I put out there. Instead of words or images that mean something to me, I more often reserve this space for words or images that may interest those who read. When I think of it that way, it really makes me a little sad. I don't want this blog to be like reality TV. Like one of those shows that has a camera in the house 24/7 but  condenses it into 30 minutes to an hour and calls it the real life of so and so. When in actuality it's the life they've pieced together and edited to provide entertainment. It's not a true documentation of the lives of those on display. When I started this blog, I saw it as a diary of sorts. I know I've mentioned here before the health issues I have that make me hyper-aware of my own mortality. When you are approaching (and now passed) the age at which your parent died, I think it creates a greater awareness of how short our time in this world is. I have very little tangible evidence of my mothers existence on this earth, most of it is in my memory. I don't want that to be the case for my children or grandchildren. I want them to know who I was and what I was about, from my own perspective, not just from some faded photographs. That's why I started this blog, to put into words and images what my life is about, what I spend my days doing, what makes me laugh and what makes me cry. I believe I still do that to some degree, only these days it seems to be the Readers Digest condensed version. I'm not going to make any New Years proclamations about how I'm going to post every day or anything. I know that would last about three days, but I do want to take some of the filters off, worry less about the interestingness of the material. Hey, in reality I'm not always that interesting, and this is supposed to be my reality, right? If it proves to be boring to some, that's the beauty of choice, they can choose not to read. One day I will print these words, and to the few who will hold it in their hands, it will not matter how many read it online.

Wow, that's not at all the post I sat down here to write. I'm not sure where it came from. I think looking back at those early posts evoked the same feelings I get from seeing an old photograph of myself. That who is that person response. It's hard to believe I looked so young. For me it's hard to believe how new and fresh and excited I felt back then about blogging. Though I have very little control over the effects of time on my appearance, I can control the effect it has on my writing. All it takes is a little change in perspective.

The photo above is a little baby Mary-Jane that I crocheted. It says a lot about what a difference two years can make. I can say with great confidence that when I wrote that very first post, I had no idea in a couple of years I'd know how to crochet or sweet cracker sandwich, that I'd be crocheting a baby-bootie for my first grandchild.

There's nothing like the flipping of a calendar page to throw you into a tailspin of introspective naval gazing, huh?