Pattie's Place – Page 9 – Good Stuff from Pattie

Potato Salad with Bacon recipe,

10/24/2013 by moss Leave a Comment

I only have 7 ingredients for my creamy potato salad. And I NEVER put pickles or onions in mine. That’s just wrong! With this great fall weather we’ve been having it seems like a good day to make ribs and potato salad!

Weekday Chef’s Creamy Potato Salad with Bacon!

This is one of my kids’ favorite things that I make for BBQ dinners….great for summer picnics too.

My 7 ingredients are: Potatoes, eggs, bacon, celery, mustard, mayo, and salad seasoning. These 7 yummy things makes a great potato salad. But don’t eat it that often because it is very high in calories and the egg yolks aren’t so good for your arteries. But it’s great for a special Summer BBQ.

I like to use either red, new potatoes, or Yukon Gold potatoes. Both just seem creamier to me.

And of course bacon makes everything a little bit better, now doesn’t it?

If I use the red, new potatoes, I don’t peel off the skins, ever. But sometimes I do with the Yukon Gold, if I’m not feeling too lazy.
Potato Salad Ingredients List:
13 to 15 small and medium potatoes cut up into bite size chunks so it fills a big salad bowl
7 eggs (boiled with the potatoes, then chopped up)
1 1/4 cups of good quality mayo
3 Tablespoons regular French’s Mustard
4-5 pieces of bacon cooked and crumbled
3-4 stalks of celery finely sliced (I like that bit of crunch)
5-7 shakes (to taste) of Salad Seasoning (about 2 teaspoons)

Seasoning salt and pepper if you need more flavor
Top with a few shakes of parsley flakes

It’s hard to find this stuff sometimes, but it MAKES every single salad better, pasta, potato, spinach…I use it a LOT!

The best potatoes to use are these red, new potatoes. Just leave the skins on!

Yukon Gold also make great potato salads…leave skins on or peel as you please…I peeled mine for this salad.

It’s a great side dish. And it tastes even better the next day when all the seasonings have melded together as leftovers!

THE WEEKDAY CHEF

Top 10 Reasons Why Fall is My Favorite Season

10/21/2013 by Pattie Leave a Comment

I have always loved this time of year. FALL IS THE BEST SEASON OF ALL! I love the holidays, the scenery, the weather, and the traditions I keep with my family, and for all sorts of other reasons. Here are just a few of them. My TOP 10 REASONS why the Fall Season is the BEST!

1. I LOVE GOING BACK TO SCHOOL! I am a teacher and I just love all the excitement of kids and parents planning for a new school year. Everybody gets new clothes and backpacks and lunch pails (who doesn’t remember their first Barbie or Hot Wheels Lunch Pail?), a new haircut and shoes, and we get to meet our students for the year and decorate up our classrooms. It is a lot of fun for a teacher to do Back to School.

Back to School Buses with some of our school rules….

We haven’t seen our teacher friends for a few months and it’s fun to reconnect again. I laugh at the Staples commercial where moms and dads are skipping happily through the store with carts full of school supplies while the kids trudge unhappily behind them while they are singing “It’s the MOST wonderful time of the year!”. I concur. 😀

Balloon Festival at the park down the street from us…her’s the hubs taking pics

2.HARVEST FESTIVALS! I love the harvest time. Up here in Utah at the end of summer there are lots and lots of festivals celebrating the harvest. We have Peach Days, Onion Days, Scarecrow Festival, Lavender Days, Raspberry Days at our Bear Lake cabin and many others. Each and every festival is unique and lots of fun. Some of them people dress up for too like Swiss Days in Heber and the Witch Scavenger Hunt at Gardner Village. I love to go to a pumpkin patch or pick cherries or apples from an orchard with family members too. I like to then go make things out of my fruit like cherry crisp or fresh peach pies. I enjoy going to a pumpkin patch too. Do you have to be a little kid to enjoy it? Nope. You can just smile at little kids enjoying it. 😀

Raspberry Days at Bear Lake where we have a cabin. It’s a blast.

Here are my cute little granddaughters at one of the festival picture booths.

Fall Festivals are so much fun in Utah. I love them!!

I love the fall scarecrow festival and the witch scavenger hunt at Gardner Village.

And who doesn’t love getting a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch? We love it!

3.MY BIRTHDAY is in October. Well you can’t blame me for liking my birthday. You have to go on an adventure as you get older and have some kind of new experience. That much I have learned. Because as you get older your birthdays start to suck. So you have to change it up. Try something scary or new. Go experience a concert, a new sport, go see a wonder of the world. My brother and my nephew and I all share a birthday. So it’s fun to message each other and remember birthdays past that we’ve done together. It’s fun to get 100 likes on Facebook for your birthday too and get new things you buy yourself for a present (like my cool, new laptop I’m writing on right now). Spoil yourself on your birthday no matter what season it happens on. I try to also give presents or a party to somebody else near my birthday so I don’t feel like it’s a sucky day. It makes it lots more fun to give than to get.

The Band Perry Concert

Hiking Dog Lake

The hubs and I at Mary’s Lake above Brighton Ski Resort.

Grandpa’s 87th Birthday Party at my house in September.

Hanging out with some of the grandkids

Singing Happy Birthday with about 30 of the family gathered. Family is so fun.

Here he is with one of his youngest great-grandsons, my only grandson, Dylan.

4. HALLOWEEN PARTIES AND DECORATIONS! I just love seeing black and orange and purple and lime green decorations all over the stores right now. I love a cute witch or frankie and I love to see Jack o lanterns decorated in all sorts of ways. My favorite time to decorate my house is Halloween time. I have almost more decorations for Halloween than I do for Christmas! EEK! I know, it is an illness.

Drink station at a Halloween Decorated Dinner Party I had recently.

Entry table all in orange and black.
I love me a good Halloween Party. Add some dry ice and bobbing for apples and a pumpking carving contest and a bunch of weirdos in costume and you can’t help but have fun. And add some little smokies pigs-in-a-blanket that look like mummies and some green jello and some kind of meat on a stick and you’ve got it made!

My favorite holiday and some of my favorite decorations are at Halloween time.

Getting ready for trick or treaters.

Fun treats for the kids made from rice crispie treats.

One of my cute costumes I wore to school on Halloween one year. I love it!

Check them all out HERE. These Halloween Cupcakes were fun to make!

Making Halloween treats is one of my specialties! I loved these cupcakes and skeleton brownies!

Ladybug Lady.

And my grandkids coming over in costume to trick or treat grandma is one of the best traditions there ever was. I love those little witches and pirates. And I always plan something fun to give them like trick or treat baskets, stuffed animals, glow in the dark toys or some rice crispie treats on a stick or candy house

Halloween Party in my classroom with my grandkids and I as ladybugs and bees.

Trick or Treat! My first Granddaughter Marisa.

5. THANKSGIVING FUN! I love having people over for turkey dinner and eating till I’m stuffed with all of my favorite foods. And everybody is always so happy on Thanksgiving. There are no expectations like there are at Christmas. It’s just a fun holiday to get together.We play games, decorate gingerbread cookie houses and we pin the feather on the turkey. And we always go to the movies in the evening after everybody has gone home happy.

Entry tables and coffee tables are so pretty in the fall! I love the rustic colors.

I always have lots of fun pulling out the Thanksgiving Plastic Bins and getting reaquainted with all of my cool Fall decor again. I love the fall colors, the fake leaves, glass pumpkins, and scarecrows!

I love pretty placemats for every season and scented candles and silk flowers too.

We played pin the hat on the turkey….the girls and Devin loved it! (My 28 year old son is just a big kid, didn’t you know?)

My cooking blog Weekday Chef shows some of my time wasting I like to do in the fall… check it out for Scarecrow Cupcakes and other ideas for Thanksgiving parties.

I love Thanksgiving almost as much as Halloween Decor.

Here’s the family and lots of Autumn decor on an end table in my great room. Every year it looks a little bit different. It’s fun to decorate for each season of the year.

Fall picture wall….I change out the flowers and ribbon color and usually put a new swag of beads along the wrought iron picture holder.

Thanksgiving table decor

Kitchen counters…..

I have lots of end tables I decorate for each season…..I get carried away….

Pilgrims and Indians….

Thanksgiving decorating

Thanksgiving Fun

6. HIKES IN UTAH MOUNTAINS in early October. It’s not too hot, not too chilly, and the autumn colors on the mountains are just awe inspiring! I love the mix of orange, yellow, green and red. And the animals are all about too. Just yesterday I saw a young family of deer walk across the street as I was driving home from school. I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough! 5 little deer will just make your day, believe me!

Hiking Minnetonka Caves in Idaho with my sis.

Hiking around Sundance Ski Resort in Utah. We didn’t see Robert Redford though…sigh….

Bridal Veil Falls hike on October day with the grandkids…..

Just above ALTA Ski Resort look what we saw hiking….it doesn’t get any better than this!

Hiking in October is really the very best weather…..

We are surrounded by a dozen lakes and reservoirs to hike around– this was Bell Canyon Reservoir in October.

7. I LOVE THE FALL SPORTS! I love watching the World series in Baseball, and the start of Sunday Night Football. It is fun for my hubs and me, and for the guys in the family to get together and talk about our favorite teams while eating great football snacks

Fun Football Snacks

Football starts in the fall….Sunday Night Football is fun to look forward to!

I make the hubs Football Pancakes on Football Sunday Mornings just for fun.

Lots of the kids do fantasy teams and that adds to the fun. I love watching my little grandkids playing sports too. Have you ever watched 4 year olds playing sports? It’s a HOOT.

Love the football snacks too.

HERE you can check out how to tmake these soft pretzels for Monday Night Football!

Or some football cookies or Pigs in a Blanket!

.And who doesn’t love a good, rough, hockey game in person? I love to go see the Utah Grizzlies and watch the clown shoot hot dogs up in the stands and stand up to dance to YMCA. And have you ever done “Chuck a Puck”? Well you haven’t lived then. It’s a fun sport, hockey is. My son Danny loved it and we loved watching him play and end up in the penalty box. It makes me smile thinking about it. We’ve got tickets for November already!

Football snacks are fun to make and yummy to eat.

We make little individual pizzas in these cast iron pans They turn out like Pizza Hut deep dish pizzas.Gotta love football snacks! And I LOVE pigs in a blanket!

Football Snack Pizzas

8. FAMILY QUAD RIDING at our Cabin in the mountains during the Fall season too. It is one of the most fun family outings a family can have. We take the little ones and put them on the back of the 4 wheelers in their own little helmets and go tour the national forests around our cabin. The weather is nice and crisp and breathing fresh air when you are doing something physical and beautiful at the same time is a rush. I love it!

Fall Family photos and quad riding….

The beauty of nature on display…..

Some of the most fun times we’ve had are riding the quads as a family up in the mountains above Bear Lake.

I’m always at the end of the pack…lol….

I love coming in half warm half cold to get by the fire and drink some hot chocolate and grab some BBQ chips after riding quads or hiking out in the mountains of Utah. It’s just so neat. My hubs is a biker and he loves that too. I love watching the pelaton of bike racers whizzing around a curve at the mountain bike races they have right near our cabin too. But I just take the pictures. I don’t bike.

I love quad riding out in nature.

9. MY GARDEN looks good but it’s not as much work as summer gardens are. I’ve done all the back breaking weeding and hoeing and mulching all summer and everything has slowed down but everything still looks good. It hasn’t all died yet but the workload has shrunk down to nothing but the occasional odd weed or watering. Mostly it is just beautiful and colorful with fall orange and red foliage, a harvest of green, yellow squash and orange pumpkins and red apples from the trees and vines and lovely fall mums and shrubs in shades of orange, yellow and burgundy.

Fall gardening…when the deer don’t eat the lilies I am a happy camper.

It just makes me happy. Every year I put down a new door mat in fall colors for my front door and add a beautiful fall wreath with some Hobby Lobby Doo Dads of some sort.

My pond and my flowers are just starting to slow down, but things still look pretty good in Autumn.

It is just inviting to walk up my front path in the fall seeing the green pine trees, the aspens and the fall leaves changing colors on our other trees and shrubs. Fall is the best season for beauty in nature, I think.

I have 4 fruit trees and lots of veggie gardens……and 2 ponds.

Some of the fruits of my labor…..

10. FALL FASHIONS I love when all the new fall sweaters and scarves can come out and I can cover up with some of my favorite boots and overshirts and sweaters and scarves. I love the new fall looks in magazines and trying new fall colors of jewelry and nail polish. It all feels new like a new school year.

Even though I love Christmas in the winter and Easter in the Spring, and a good, long, summer vacation, I’ve always loved fall the best. I remember skating down my street, my cheeks flushed and pink, panting and happy with my new, red, birthday skates, loving the weather and being outdoors. And here I am 50 years later and I still feel exactly the same way. FALL ROCKS!

Grandpa Moss’ 87th Birthday Party!

10/20/2013 by Pattie Leave a Comment

Grandpa Don Moss turned 87 and I decided to have the whole Moss family over for dinner. It was fun seeing everybody and hanging out together. He is a great man and just recently finished his book of his life story. We all got a hardbound copy. He rocks!

Here Don is with his newest Great-Grandson, Dylan Tremayne (Tiffany and Gary’s son and my only grandson!)

Here is Merlene and Don with just some of their great-grandkids! He’s got a lot of great-granddaughters! Tiffany’s 2 girls, Casey’s 3 girls, Heather’s 1 girl, Nick’s 2 girls, Jeff’s 2 girls, Devin’s 1 girl. That makes 11 great granddaughters!!! Then he’s got a bunch of great grandsons too! Tiff’s 1 boy, Casey’s 2 boys, Nick’s 2 boys, Dustin’s 2 boys. That makes 7 great grandsons!! That’s a whopping 18 great grands! How cool is that?!

Tiffany and Gary and their family came and Tiff helped me with the food. Everybody brought a dish and we had some marvelous side dishes. I forgot to take a pic of all my pork chops. Oh well.

Grandpa’s cake …..John picked out the “over the hill” but that’s his humor. I thought it was cute when Don turned the 8 and 7 around to 7 and 8. lol.

His birthday is the end of September so I had all of my Halloween decorations out. Here is the drinks station we had. We decorated the kiddie tables with Halloween pumpkins and napkins. I think the girls liked eating next to the lit up Jack-o-lanterns.

Here were the 2 kiddie tables I put together for the 9 little ones who came.

My granddaughters loved sitting together with all their girl cousins.

We had pork chops, cheesy potatoes, lots of different veggie and fruit salads, homemade rolls by Robin, and cake.

It was really yummy. Everybody chowed down.

Tiffany’s spinach salad….

Heather’s spinach salad. Both were so different and so delicious! Don’tcha love my skeleton tongs? They add so much…snicker….

Everybody getting ready to grab a plate and go dig in. These were the 2 adult tables.

I think I snapped this pic just before the prayer. How rude am I? Yes I am kind of rude now that I see it in living color. 🙁

We had chips and salsa too, fruit salad, pasta salad, it was a yummy feast.

Jeff and Tiff’s families sat with Casey and Heather’s families. They all have little kids. It’s funny how all the old people sat together, all the young people sat together, and all the young couples sat together.

Megan was always willing to pose for me. 😀 I love her so much!

The adults dinner table…here are all of us old people. John always has his glasses halfway down his nose like that. snicker….

Here was the before picture of the young adults table. We have a lot of college aged kids in our family.

This was the young adults table with everybody sitting around it. All the college kids ate together. They are the good looking ones of the bunch. Yup.

And here we are singing Happy Birthday to Grandpa. I wish all my pics weren’t so dark. I’m still a sucky photog.

To me the funnest part of the night was Dennis Moss (top right) getting out his ipad and connecting with Nick Moss in Washington D.C. and John Moss (my hubs) connecting his iphone with Devin Moss in Chicago, and both of them looking at each other through the i technology and then at Grandpa and talking to him and to each other and all of us listening in. It was just a JETSON’S MOMENT! Those of you too young to have watched the Jetson’s as kids won’t get it, but we don’t get a lot of your technology so we are even!

Grandpa Don Moss has been the most wonderful grandpa I could ever ask for. My kids all love him dearly. Here he is with Grandma Merlene holding the latest grandbaby. I think this is Heather’s baby girl..

Happy Birthday to you….we recorded all of us singing too.

He is a sweetheart and we love him.

Wendy and Jeff Moss and family with Grandma and Grandpa Moss. We all took turns sitting with them and taking individual family pictures. I wish I had pics of everybody.

Here’s Gary and Tiff’s Family with Grandma and Grandpa Moss.

Robin and Tiff and I all brought jars filled with Candy and did a guessing game for the little kids. Whomever was closest to the correct candy estimate got to take the jar of candy or gum home. We spread the winnings out so each little kid’s family got to take a jar home. In essence, we cheated the college kids out of their candy. lol. Nobody complained. Too bad I forgot to take a pic. It’s a fun family reunion game I found on the web.

It was a lot of fun to hang out with family on a great occasion such as our patriarch’s birthday. We all love our Grandpa Moss. I hope we get many more fun birthday celebrations with him and Merlene too.

Halloween Cupcakes and Skeleton Brownies

10/17/2013 by Pattie Leave a Comment

Halloween Cupcakes; pumpkin cupcakes and vampire cupcakes too!

I played around decorating some cute Halloween Cupcakes for a party I was going to.

I had about 7 different designs on my Halloween Cupcake treats.

It was fun to make the “Purple People Eater” cupcakes with little eyeball superballs.

Halloween brownies made to look like skeletons were made from pretzels

My favorite Halloween treats were these brownie skeletons made from white chocolate disks for the heads and yogurt covered pretzels for the bodies. I had to put chocolate icing on the walnut brownies too.I added pretzels and white chocolate candy melts for the faces. The rest of the body I used just white buttercream icing and made the legs and hands with a pastry bag and a decorator icing tip.

Halloween Cupcakes…the spiderweb cupcakes and pumpkin cupcakes were super easy!

Here is a plate of my finished cupcakes. Love the chocolate vampire cupcakes with M & M eyes and candy corn teeth. The bloody smiles are made from red fruit snacks cut into strips.

I had some spider rings at school I added to the spiderweb cupcakes but forgot to take pics afterwards. The mummy cupcake was super easy with M & M eyes

I added a small box of vanilla pudding, 3/4 cup of sour cream and some butterscotch chips to the batter of the cupcakes. I also added half melted butter, instead of 1/2 the oil. It just tastes better. I hate cupcakes where I can taste the oil! Yuck!

Finished Halloween cupcakes and treats on top. They were very colorful and very yummy too.

Cute Pumpkin Halloween Cupcakes

The easiest Halloween cupcakes were the spiderwebs and pumpkins. Just chocolate chips for the jack-o-lantern faces. I just added chocolate chips for the face and some pretty sprinkles over the orange and green icing.

Creepy Vampire Cupcakes for Halloween….super CUTE!

This vampire cupcake was so cute. I thought it turned out cute with the brown sprinkles for the chocolate iced hair, and the M & M eyes. I made some eyes brown chocolate chip eyes too. I couldn’t decide which one looked better.

Halloween Cupcakes! Lots of mummies, ghouls and spiderwebs!

Notice the 2 colors of spiderweb cupcakes too. I think they both look really pretty. It would be a cute plate to just have the 2 flavors of spiderweb cupcakes for a party.

Gotta love a purple people eater cupcakes!

I also made a pan of brownies too. They were skeleton brownies. I added candy corn to the square brownies.

Skeleton Brownies were my favorite, and super easy too!

Check out all the sweet treat fun! I got a lot of inspiration from looking on Pinterest at cute treat ideas I could try. I love peanut butter cookies. I’d do the pumpkin kisses with peanut butter cookies instead of brownies.

Pumpkin Kiss Brownies at Daily Food Buzz are cute.

At Food.Daily Buzz is the recipe for these cute yummy things.

These Halloween Brownies are super cute. And they were super easy. I love a mint flavoring for the icing and then I would tint the icing mint green. It looks so fun like cute little Frankenstein and jack-o-lantern faces!

Here at Tidymom.net is a bunch of really sweet cookies to decorate for Halloween. I love the Spiderwebs and Candy corn coothe best! But it is the assortment that really makes the white serving plate look special!

Here are my 2 little pirates at the Halloween Party. Argh! Matey! Have a Happy Halloween!

Why I like James Altucher and Oddballs in General

10/01/2013 by Pattie 2 Comments

I have always been different. Call me an oddball if you want. I choose to call myself creative. I’m messy sometimes, passionate about things, opinionated, I gravitate to beauty in its many forms. I hate camping but I love roasting marshmallows over a campfire. I abhor hiking with a 25 pound pack on my back but love walking around a lake (just don’t call it hiking or I may stab you with my hot dog skewer used for aforementioned marshmallow cooking). I love decorating my entire house and classroom for holidays but most actual holidays stress me out. I think I like the idea of the beautiful holiday home, but planning the events holidays require can be stressful for the party planner person. And I love a good party. I have a love/hate relationship with holidays. I sometimes love being the life of the party and lately I want to stay home from the party. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s too much effort to get all dressed up anymore. I am odd. I love to be creative. But I don’t like the details. I love to teach school, I hate dealing with the report cards. I love getting new stuff, but I hate seeing the bill. I hate laundry but I’m always bringing home too many new clothes. I am not logical. I am odd. I know this.

I want one of these wild hogs someday. In the meantime maybe I’ll just get a hot pink Vespa. 😀

I love fellow oddballs like myself. I love creative people who are a little bit like Monk; Weird but smart and a little OCD at the same time. I have a prejudice against people who are slow talkers, slow processors, and slow drivers. I absolutely couldn’t be friends with a slow talker. (or the person who voted for Obama because that person is a big dummy). I like the person who can finish my sentences and who thinks quick. I love shows like Gilmore Girls, Suits, White Collar, where the dialogue is so fast paced you missed stuff if you were not paying attention. (although it almost killed me when I heard the star of White Collar, Matt Bomer was gay. BUT WHY OH WHY did you have to tell us that U.S. Weekly, WHY!?#% http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/white-collar-star-matt-bomer-im-gay-2012132

One of the TRULY finger-licking, good-looking men…..why are you going to the dark side, WHY??

I loathe getting stuck behind a slow old grandma driver especially when I’m in a hurry. Is there anything worse on this green earth? I don’t think there is. I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out with pliers! I’d want to scratch my eyeballs out! I’d want to jump out of my skin. The other day there was one of these grannies at the gas station deciding how and which pump she was going to. She backed forward a little then backed up then changed her mind going 5 miles an hour. By the time she had decided what the “bleep” she was doing I almost yelled swear words out the window. Then I saw who it was. It was the wife of a pastor/leader at church. Good thing I kept the swearing to inside of my head, right? I also like people who swear inside their heads. I just like you. You are part of my posse.

Here is a little part of my posse too. 😀

More of my posse….

And since tomorrow is my birthday I decided to give everybody a little gift. Here it is. I sent one of this guy’s posts to my hubs like 6 months ago and he’s gotten a kick out of him too. So here is your little gift for the day. I highly recommend this guy’s blog. He is funny most of the time, quick witted, tells it like it is bluntly.

I love those kind of people because I relate to them. I’m not diplomatic. I’m blunt. I like my kind I guess. Sometimes he is an ignorant boob but aren’t we all at times? He is never apologetic about it either. But he is always refreshing, NOT politically correct, and he has some good advice….all except the part about not ever buying a house. He’s dead wrong there. I’m buying a 3rd house as soon as I pay off house #1 which is within the year. But I still like him. But not as much as I like the Pottery Barn Catalog that comes to my house every few months. I really love that.

Who wouldn’t like sitting at this Halloween dinner table? My grandkids would! Yup!

His name is James Altucher. He gets like 5 billion hits on his blog a month and I get about 25,000 on all my blogs combined, so of course he’s one of my idols. He has been everything from a fake Psychic to thrown out of graduate school. He is odd. But he is entertaining. He sometimes writes things that tickle my funnybone. He’s a fellow oddball with a creative bent. I like him. Check him out.
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/09/three-stories-about-hate/

Meet Chelsea!

09/04/2013 by Pattie 1 Comment

Introducing Miss Chelsea Anne Moss, our newest family member! She is a little doll!

She was born last week and she weighed in at 8 pounds 3 ounces. I think her daddy was just one ounce off of that. What a coincidence!

We had Josie swimming with us and the girls at Cowabunga Bay the day she was born. So when visiting hours arrived we got to see her seeing her sister for the first time. It sure was cute.

She was funny when she kept finding little bugs on the ground. Here she found a tiny little caterpillar.

She found another bug a minute later. It was BUG MANIA! But really good weather. lol.

She found a Grasshopper too. It was pretty funny because it was all in like a 5 minute stretch of time!

She had a good time with her cousins at the last day of the season at Cowabunga Bay. It’s a really fun place we have enjoyed so much this year as a family. I love this picture.

Grandma Robin got there the same time we got there. So we snapped pictures of each other holding our new grandbaby Chelsea. She is a lot more photogenic than I am. She is a teacher too. We always have loads to talk about whenever we get together. Wendy used to be a teacher too before she had kids. We love to talk teacher stuff.

Uncles and Aunts came too! Here is Wendy’s sister Amy and her husband Robert. He teaches school too. We are a family of elementary school teachers.

I love this picture I snapped at the pretty mom and the cute big sista.

Here is my handsome son holding his daughter’s hand while she holds her sister in her arms……sweetness overload!

Jeff gave Josie some sparkling cider to celebrate the new baby sister she has!!

Grandpa Michelson holding Chelsea for the first time.

I love this picture of her. She is saying, “Okay you guys, I’m kind of tired now, let me go back to sleep already!”

Josie meeting Chelsea. “We will have some good times together!” she is thinking…..

It is such a miracle having a baby. It is an exciting thing for any family. I am so happy for my oldest son and his cute and healthy new little one. We are very blessed. Yes we are.

I got to hold her the longest. I already love her. (sounds of kisses)….

#AshtonKutcherRocks!

08/15/2013 by Pattie Leave a Comment

We used to watch Ashton Kutcher when my kids were little on That 70’s Show. He played the goofball teen who was always trying to figure things out….kind of the airhead kid whose elevator didn’t always get up to the top floor….

But the other night on the #TeenChoice Awards Show he really impressed me with his acceptance speech. He talked about how “opportunity looks a lot like #hardwork”. How refreshing to have someone who has become a superstar with teens, give them such great advice. Ashton, you ROCK man!

There were girls screaming in the background with every word out of his mouth. But I really liked that he used HIS opportunity to teach kids something about life. He told them to “be smart, generous and thoughtful, because that’s what makes a person sexy”. And that everything else is crap. I don’t know about that. I think jeans with sparkles on the butt are sexy. LOL. But I love thoughtful people. It makes them a lot more loveable. Remember how many followers he has on twitter? He’s probably going to get a lot more now. Maybe even some soccer moms!

And lastly, he talked about playing #SteveJobs in the film he recently made. He said he got to learn some great quotes from Jobs, who was always an original, and most likely, an actual genius.

He paraphrased #SteveJobs about “not just living inside somebody else’s “box” or idea of a life, but making, creating your own life, building it the way YOU want it to be.” Sounds like a “Jobsism” to me.

I think he hit upon the essence of happiness in a short, 5 minute speech. What a Good job #AshtonKutcher. It’s no wonder people follow you around like you’re the Pied Piper.

#AshtonKutcher’Speech at the Teen Choice Awards 2013 was super impressive. You’ve got a lot going for you, man! And as role models for kids go, You impressed the HECK outta me! I might just be your newest Twitter follower.

Organizing My Messy Laundry Room

07/31/2013 by Pattie Leave a Comment

Laundry Room Organization idea… IKEA $4.00 wooden spice racks will fit 2 dryer sheet boxes perfectly!

I, unfortunately am NOT Martha Stewart. I am a messy person. I have a mini-hoarding ailment. I don’t like clutter, yet I create clutter. So once in awhile it gets to me, and I realize I’m only one stack of crap away from a true-blue Hoarder!! EEK!

Laundry room “BEFORE I organized a little. What a mess!

So I looked at my laundry area behind the kitchen and sighed with regret that I wasn’t one of those kinds of OCDish-organized people I have a love/hate relationship with. I look at them like slugs on a sidewalk trying to figure out why/how they are what they are.

Laundry Room Organization Ideas….I had to do something…I know I’m one load short of being invited onto the show “Hoarders!”

And I always wish I could figure out ways to become a little bit more OCDish myself!! (and why in the heck whenever I ask an organized person how they got to be so organized they just say, “I don’t really know”?) That is not very helpful people!

Messy laundry room needs a little help I think!

So I found myself in another stack of crap piling up on my desk and instead of rooting through the clutter I played on the internet on Martha’s website looking for organizational “tips”. They had this cool picture I loved. Don’t you love it too? I wish my laundry room looked like this!!

Isn’t this so sweet? (well it’s also a little bit of overkill…) I love Miss Martha. Here is a look at her other tips. Did you hear she’s on a computer dating website now? Yeah, it’s probably hard for opinionated, crafty, super mega-billionaire-foodie, former inmates to find a date!

Anyway, I liked her little racks on the left. We all have stuff in the laundry room like our Shout sprays, our fabric softener sheets and bleach sticks that need a place up off the counters. Well, here is the solution! I have hooks galore but not as many shelves. (man, look at all her scrub brushes in the little basket on the left wall. WHO scrubs THAT much in ANY laundry room? That’s just crazy. Get more out of life people. Toss that darn shirt away if you need to scrub it that much. It’s just not worth it! Or go shop for new shirts like I do…it’s a lot more fun. LOL

I found myself scrubbing the faucet in the bathroom sink the other day with a toothbrush for like 10 minutes. At some point I realized I just need to go get new faucets! Those things are 40 years old, it’s TIME! My hubs stuck his head in the door wondering what all that scrubbing was about and just laughed at me. And then he quickly agreed to go with me to buy new fixtures this week.

BEKVÄM Spice rack IKEA Saves space on the countertop Solid wood can be sanded and surface treated as needed.

These COOL IKEA spice racks are only $3.99 each. They look good grouped together too. I’ve been waiting to find a use for them and I finally did!

Anyhoo……So I had bought a bunch of these IKEA little, wooden, mini spice shelves I was going to use in my classroom for books-of-the-week to highlight what we are learning about. I still might use a few of them. But I bought 4 and I decided to cop one of them for my laundry room organization project. I think the dryer sheets might fit in there!! So I tried it out!

Check out all of these pictures on the IKEA website for more ideas HERE. Maybe I can use these in the bathroom too…..hmmmm…….how about the garage and all those paint cans and car wax….

I decided that I would place the shelf with dryer sheets over the dryer, (duh!) aren’t I the clever Cathy? Yes I am! But I did think it also would have worked on the back of the door in the laundry room. Here are a few great ideas for around 20 bucks!

I might use another one for the bleach sticks, fabric softener, and stain sprays I have lining the washing machine. (Yeah, I’m a clutter nut, remember?).Now I’m thinking of my bathroom. I might be able to do something like this in there to reduce curling iron and hair spray and hair gel clutter. It will probably take me a few months to get around to it though…

With a little clutter here, a little clutter there, here a pile, there a pile, everywhere a pile, pile….E-I-E-I-O!

Find a little corner to hang some hooks for aprons and things you use a lot. I’m really hooked on the hook idea!!

I put a few hooks in there too for my cleaning aprons and cooking aprons. There never is a good place for them in drawers, they are like oven mitts! They need hanging up. Another thing I will hang there is a grocery bag holder for those pesky plastic grocery bags. I have them in a drawer of all the dumb things. That is just silly. It takes up all the drawer space!

And I put a broom/mop holder on the inside of the pantry door which shares a room with my laundry room. It is out of sight now and kind of cool! Yeah, I like it a lot!

Mop and Brooms Organized now! Woo Hoo! Maybe I should mop something? hmmm…… maybe not…

IKEA spice racks made into Snuggle dryer sheet holders. Yeah, I’m crafty! 2 fit in here perfectly!!

I like how it looks in there now. It looks a little better. I wish I had a giant room like Miss mega billionaire Martha, but my little laundry “area” will have to do. It is a tiny improvement at least. 🙂

The hubs added this little closet pole to the space between the wall and the laundry room cabinets for more storage. What a good man he is.

I decided this area will be only for my shirts. The area to the right with hooks on the door will be for the hub’s stuff. It took me all this time to figure this out? I’m so embarrased! ……like I said, not an organized mind….sigh…..

Laundry Room Rack for Fabric Softeners….it’s a lot better in there now.

Thanks Martha you wizard you! You are simply inspirational! (squealed with joy in my authentic Paula Deen Southern belle drawl…) You go girl!

Zuchini Recipes (Chicken Chili)

07/28/2013 by moss Leave a Comment

Zuchini Chicken Chili

My good friend Launa brought my hubs and I over some of her hub’s garden goods; a few of these yellow squash and zuchinis. I love zuchini and my hubs loves yellow squash, but neither one of us had grown or seen these yellow zuchini before. Aren’t they so pretty? I had to use them tonight in something.

Chocolate Chip Zuchini Bread and Chili are how I used up these garden veggies!

So I came up with a chili that I added the yellow squash to. It was really good. I had some leftover roast beef I used, some fresh tomatoes from the garden, corn off the cob and some leftover taco meat and leftover Jimmy Dean sausage I had frozen in a zip lock baggie.

Stir fried up the veggies and added the yellow zuchini to the mix…..I didn’t have any corn so I added carrots instead. I use up whatever leftover veggies in my fridge with this chili. It’s healthy and spicy too!

But not as spicy as this yummy Apricot Zucchini Bread I also made with the yellow Zucchini! Check it out HERE.

It was one of those nights where I just wanted to throw things in a pot and simmer it for an hour while I was finishing the wall painting in my master bathroom.We are remodeling again. Oh Crap!!

This is kind of the “Before Picture”. I’ll be done with this in another day Woo Hoo!

We are down to the last 2 bathrooms and we have finished the tile floors. Now we just need to add granite countertops. I can’t wait!

Add a packet of Lawry’s Chili seasoning and some salsa to ground or shredded beef or cubed chicken.

Anyway, here is another use for zuchini! Taco Chili

1 1/2 cups of diced chicken or fried & drained ground beef
(or shredded….I use whatever I have on hand)
1 small or 1/2 medium onion diced and sauteed for 8 minutes in oil/butter mixture
1/4 cup green or red pepper sauteed with the onion
1 cup diced tomatoes or use a can of stewed, diced tomatoes
3/4 cup corn off cob or frozen yellow corn (or another leftover veggie)
1 can kidney beans
1 can chili beans (I don’t drain the liquids)
1 quartered and sliced zuchini (small) yellow or green
1 packet of Lawry’s chili mix (found in the spaghetti and gravy packet aisle)
1/4 cup fried up ground Jimmy Dean sausage spicy (Optional) I usually have some leftover frozen from doing sausage breakfast burritos.

Zuchini Chicken or Beef Chili….it’s soooo good!

Fry up your onions first and then throw the green pepper in. While that is sauteed, fry up your ground beef and drain off the fat. Then mix the two pans together. Then cut up your tomatoes, and zucchini and 1/2 can of corn or 1 cup of fresh or frozen corn, and dump them all in, your packet of chili mix and your beans. Let it all stew together for 15 minutes on medium heat, I rarely ever have to add any more spice to this.

You can also add in any leftover veggies or spanish rice. It is kind of a “use up my leftovers” dinner. But BOY oh BOY those yellow zuchini look and tasted great! And my chili goes great with corn bread too!

Deck Restore Paint Before and After Pictures

07/25/2013 by Pattie 1 Comment

We have an old house. I think it is around 35 years old. So this deck may be really, really crotchety! That means old in pig latin. And we redid the flat part last year. This year we wanted to redo all the posts and cover up those dumb hearts. (Who puts hearts on balconies except the Swiss? Are we living in the Swiss Alps or what?)

The awful Deck. This is the BEFORE DECK RESTORE picture.

When we started the project last year we had to do a lot of PREP! Oh my GOSH the deck was flaky. Is yours that way too? Yuck! I took the power washer and washed off the entire deck really good. It took me an hour or so. Then I let it dry.

Close up of how badly we needed some RESTORE DECK PAINT done here….

This Deck Restore Paint is the greatest product EVER! It is from Home Depot. If you don’t want to redo your whole deck in Trex, this is a good alternate solution. It really made our deck look better.

RESTORE DECK PAINT comes in a gallon can and we bought an applicator roller that had a texture to it. You can add your broomstick to it so it isn’t so backbreaking to apply.

Fun stuff to decorate your deck! I love all my flags and spinners.

We sanded it with just a big wire brush, just to loosen anything that might chip off. We picked a dark brown but unfortunately they didn’t have our exact shade. You have to choose from their color selection which isn’t a huge variety, but there are about 20 colors. And we could have color matched. I think we should have, but we are getting ready to paint the house anyway, so no worries.

Here is a short video showing HOW to spread the DECK RESTORE PAINT onto your old deck. It looks really easy, AND IT WAS! Especially for me because all I did was watch! Well, and I cleaned up too. 😀

Here is my cute hubs doing the MANLY WORK! We got a color matching THE RESTORE PAINT for the deck posts and the railings around the deck. I still haven’t done it…..I am such a procrastinator! Maybe I can get him to do THAT TOO! hmmm…..

I decided our old umbrella had seen better days. So I got a fresh, new, green umbrella and some cute outdoor cushions and a few decorations for the deck. It was so boring before! But don’t the deck planks look fantastic? Oh yeah!

I love the new umbrella and the oil lamp on the table. I found it from Pier 1 on clearance! It was only 8 bucks! Woot!

The flag above I won in a blogger contest. Yay for me! It is so pretty out on the deck post.

Fake flowers in pots around the deck mixed with real ones. I got that tip from JOY IN THE GARDEN’S radio show. She does it even with tulips and daffodils! Great idea!

We added these copper, solar lights to the end posts of the deck, they were about $15.00 each at the end of the summer last year. Aren’t they pretty? Check them out Here at Home Depot.

Here is the DECK RESTORE looking great! (we still have to get rid of those hearts though! I’m still working on painting the posts and handrails. It’s a work in progress. It’s so hot I can only stand painting in the evenings.

Marisa at Cowabunga Bay. She is starting school on Friday….sigh….

But Yesterday we took a break and decided to have some fun. It’s a big holiday in Utah on July 24th. It is Pioneer Day. We took a fun break to go swimming since my hubs and son had the day off. So my daughter brought her kids and my son brought his and we had a blast!

Cowabunga Bay fun on 7-24-13

Swimming at Cpwabunga Bay was fun in the 98 degree heat! Oh yeah.

My son Jeff dragged me all over on these scary slides. I think I wet my pants on one of them! I would look over the sides and see how high up we were and start to shake. I think I must be afraid of heights or something?

Josie loved swimming in the lazy river at Cowabunga Bay with daddy.

Megan was racing all over like a wild thing. She has no fear at all!

She loved all the slides at Cowabunga Bay too!

Me and Tiff chilling out….

Josie girl chillin with us.

We had fun afterwards eating pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad for lunch at my house. But it was still too hot to eat out on the deck…..sigh…..but the deck itself looks pretty awesome! I love hanging out there in the early evenings with the hubs. Now I just have to get him to help me do all the railings….sigh…. I’m devious I know…..lol.

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