Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken!

It's no secret that I love Pinterest. Since the inception of Pinterest, I think I now watch only 1 tv show a week (Downton Abbey of course!). All my previous tv time is now given over to Pinterest! I could stare at all those lovely images all day.

I'm officially addicted.

However, I am also easily overwhelmed. I pin and pin and pin and pin to my little heart's content.It's my goal this year to actually do or try some of the things I've pinned. That goes for crafts, diy stuff, and also recipes. So here's one I tried last night:

via

Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken. This was so stinkin' good, I can't even describe it! There's several recipes out there, but I found this one via Life as a Lofthouse . Holly's recipe was simple (if not a little messy) and totally delicious. Be sure to click over to her blog for the recipe.

Surprisingly, we had a small bowl of it leftover. So for lunch today Zach asked if he could have some. After finishing his plate - he looked over and declared, "THIS CHICKEN IS BRILLIANT!"

I never knew this guy had a British Gentleman living inside him!

Discover more yummy recipes on my Pinterest board here.

Superman to the Rescue!

Stand back evil doers! Superman is here! Need help opening that new package that the UPS Man just delivered? Never fear Superman will help! All he needs is his trusty tools -  pliers and level, and he'll poom that evil package post haste! (side note: 'poom' is Zach's favorite word. As in 'Lightning McQueen poomed a tire!'  'Stand back ya swab, I'm gonna poom you!' or an unfortunate fall 'Mommy just poomed herself!' as I slipped on the vacuum cleaner hose and fell flat on my back!)

And do you see what was in that evil package?

My new fabric from fabric guru! I'm hoping to be productive this weekend and make some new pillows for our living room. I've just started on the brown and ivory stripe pillow. I got that fabric from Joanns here locally. It's a very nice slubby linen blend. I can't find the brown color online. But the ivory color is here. The best part is it's on sale now for only $3.59/yd! Can't beat that price!

I'm thinking I might add this pillow to the mix for a little more pizazz.

what do you think? It's $25 from Pottery Barn. I always crave a little more color in the cold gray days of January & February. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the other side of the room. Maybe I'll pick the dirty clothes up off the floor so I can actually show you what it looks like tomorrow!

Stay tuned...

to die for blueberry muffins!

My mom came by this week and brought me these... 10 POUNDS of blueberries! My parents sell produce at a little shop and these came fresh picked from MI. yummy!

So I enlisted my little helper to make the yummiest muffins in the world. I found this recipe in our local paper several years ago, and they never disappoint. Granted, they don't serve my goal of losing these last 5 pounds - but that's ok. Fresh blueberries don't stick around forever, ya know?

My little helper seemed to like them :)

Notice that this recipe only makes 8 (which in my house lasts for about, oh hmmm, 12 seconds) So you might want to double the recipe! You can also nix the topping if you want (but that's the best part, imo) And I was out of vegetable oil, so I substituted applesauce and they still came out moist and delicious - and probably a little healthier to boot!

wash these down with a cold glass of milk and savor these last fleeting weeks of summer. 

enjoy!

linking up to fingerprints on the fridge party

I love photoshop actions!

Ever since I coerced my poor hubby into buying photoshop for me last year, I have been in photo bliss. I had previously dabbled in it eons ago at my old job, but never fully understood it.

shoot, you could play with it for years and still never understand everything. It's that type of program.

But when I stumbled upon The Pioneer Woman's free action sets, I was hooked! These little beauties let even a total photoshop doofus (like myself) make the worst photo look awesome. 

case in point:

 this is a pic of my little man sooc (straight out of camera - I just learned that photo jargon not too long ago myself). And no, he's not hitting puberty 10 years too soon. The 'stache' is the leftover remnants of his wacky attire for Wacky Wednesday at our church :) I'll have to post more pics soon. It was pretty hysterical. I sported a 'stache too, but don't get your hopes up. I won't be posting pics of my own pubescent self anytime soon!

I digress...

 So here is the photo after I tweaked it in photoshop. I used PW's sharpening actions and mcp actions touch of light to lighten up the dark shadows. Then I followed it up with The Coffee Shop Blog's rounded corner action (which also defines & sharpens and resizes for the web!)

So if you have photoshop (or the cheaper version PS Elements), definitely check out these ladies' sites! They are so talented and generous enough to give away these awesome actions for free!

Happy photoshopping! 

edited to add: well shoot - looks like the rounded corner one didn't take for some reason and I'm too tired to try it again. So looks like I need to keep playing with it. I told you, you can never know all there is to know about photoshop!