coooooookies --- yummy cookies

I spent the whole day puttering around and not really getting all that much accomplished. I did mangage to get some of the kitchen cleaned and listed a couple of new items in my etsy shop. I also was able to clean up and clean out some of my email. This afternoon I took some pictures of items that I will be listing in my shop in the upcoming week(s). When I look back at what I have typed thus far I guess I can say that in some ways I did get quite a bit accomplished. My latest etsy listings: A victorian angel aceo card -- I am having a blast creating these collages

dragonfly birthday card -- so many handmade birthday cards look to girly -- I wanted to create something with more of a masculine feel -- I think I achieved that as this card could be given to either a male or female.

The past few days have been spent relaxing with my hubby. He had a three day weekend so we spent some quality time with one another. We went for a walk (I injured my foot) and we spent alot of time sitting on our balcony and reading our books. We even managed a few games of scrabble and a couple of drives. It was real nice and I enjoyed our time together. I truly married my best friend and I feel very blessed.

A few weeks ago I made cookies from a recipe that I found in an amish book. They were very good (although not as peanut buttery as I hoped). I thought I would share the recipe in my blog and I even took a picture so you all can see how they turned out.

Chunky Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

3/4 cup margarine 2/12 cups flour

1 cup white sugar 1 tsp baking soda

1 cup brown sugar 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup peanut butter 1 (8oz) chocolate bar, chopped

2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. beat margarine, sugars and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in chocolate pieces. Drop rounded Tbsps of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or till lightly browned. Let stand for a few min before removing from cookie sheets.

Makes -- approx 2 1/2 dozen

It sure made our kitchen smell yummy -- I may even bake another batch this week if the rain continues. Speaking of kitchens -- we got out tap changed and I am so liking the new one. It is a all in one and it has different sprays. The button is under the spout so you can't see it.

I still have no idea what I will be making for dinner tonight -- most likely something simple -- maybe potatoes and chicken burgers and of course my daily salad.

Until next time ~ blessings ~ Shell

spring buds

I am loving spring -- although it has been a rather cool spring. I love the flower buds on the trees before the leaves come. My hubby and I have been going for more and walks lately. This week we went three times. Our goal is 4 times a week so we are slowly getting there. It is much easier to go for a walk when it is nice out. We live in a climate that gets a lot of rain but as long as I have a hood and an umbrella then I am fine. We rarely get snow and I have to say == I love that!!. That is me under one of the trees on our walk.

Here are a couple more pictures that I took during one of out latest walks.

I am hoping to take a few pictures of the magnolia trees as those ones are my favorite.

The past week I have been busy making cards. I made this one for my neice who is turning 8 and I liked it so much I decided to make one for my etsy shop as well. I added a touch of glitter and it really finished the card off. You can't really tell by the picture (the glitter) but it shows up in real life.

I also have been creating mini little gift cards. I will be posting them in my shop soon. I think I am going to sell them in groups of 10. They are all different == 5 will be plain and 5 will have either "hello" or "thinking of you" stamped on them. I think they make great little cards to add to gift bags -- especially if one is recycling the bag and the little taggy has been used or is no longer attatched.

Tonite we are going to a comedy improv. I think it will be fun -- at least I hope it will be. It is based sorta on that television show that used to be on "whose line is it anyways?". I love to laugh and I am anticipating a good time.

Blessings ~ Shelley

mama mia

Well hubby and I went to see the musical mama mia and it was great. He surprised me on valentines day with the tickets as he knew that I had always wanted to go to it. What a sweet guy!!!! He took the day off of work so we made an evening out of it and drove to Langley for an early dinner at the olive garden (very yummmmmy!!!) and then proceeded to vancouver for the show. We even were able to find parking only abouty 6 blocks away so that was a good thing too. If you have never seen mama mia and ever get the opportunity to go then I highly recommend it. The story line was great -- the dancing was great -- the music and singing was awesome. My hubby even loved it and we both laughed through-out. At the end the whole audience was on its feet swaying and dancing and singing to the music. I was telling my dad about what we thought about it (he and my mom saw it last year) and how when I was a kid my best friend and I used to pretend we were abba and would dress up and sing --- he responded by saying , "you mean they go that far back" -- lol -- I don't think he even realized what he said.

I am half way through a book that I started reading the other day. It is called Crystal Lies By Melody Carlson. So far it is really good. It is about a mom dealing with her sons addiction and really how addiction effects the whole family -- including the one who is the addict. I will most likely be done it tomorrow or the next day.

I have been doing quite a bit of crochet lately -- basically making face scrubbies. I have a hard time just sitting and watching television so I usually end up working on a crochet project. I have been using these scrubbies for a while now and really enjoy them. They are soft enough that they don't iritate my skin yet still clean the make-up off. A friend of mine had me make her some to use when she is bathing her new baby. I listed a couple of sets on etsy the other day and have another set that I will be listing soon. These lime green and white ones are my current favorite as I love the colors. I have always been a green girl -- maybe because my eyes are green.

I guess I should get and start dinner -- on tonites menu is baked spagehetti and garlic toast with a salad. Something relatively easy -- my kind of cooking! I still haven't gotten around to baking a new cookie recipe that I recently found -- peanut butter with chunks of chocolate -- but hope to get to that soon --- if they turn out I may even post the recipe.

Blessings ~ Shell

drive to harrison hot springs

I think I pretty much slept through most of the weekend as I was feeling icky. I managed to get myself together to go out and get my hair cut but other than that -- I didn't get a whole lot done. I guess that is not always a bad thing as sometimes it is important to just rest and relax -- now if one could only find the time to do just that.

I was feeling much better today so hubby and I decided to take a drive to harrison hot springs -- about an hour away from here. There was an article in the paper about the sandcastle competition coming up in May. They are amazing and we have gone the past couple of years. they have one competition in May and one I believe in September -- we have gone to both. It is hard to believe that some of these sculptures are actually made out of sand. I have a whole bunch of bookmarks in my Etsy store that I have made out of pictures that I have taken of sculptures. Anyways -- this past weekend they had a three citys competition -- Victoria, Vancouver and I cant recall the other one. I took a few pictures of them and then we went for a walk around the swimming lake.

It was a bit chilly but the walk was quite nice and when the sun shined it was nice. As soon as we were done with our walk and were headed to the car , it started raining --- yay us !!! We hardly got wet. lol --- here in BC that is a miracle at times.

I also took this beautiful picture of the mountains -- we were amazed at how much snow was still on it.

This week I am going to focus on getting our home clean --it never fails whenever I am sick I get better and realize my house is now sick. Reminds me of my card and what I sometimes think my husband thinks -- lol.

I also want to make a few mothers day cards as well as some matchbook note pads.

Time now to start dinner -- today menu - salad -- chicken burgers -- and perogies -- not sure about dessert yet -- maybe some chocolate later on.

Blessings ~ Shell

I had a semi busy weekend as I worked the day shifts on Saturday and Sunday. I am a night owl -- always have been -- and have a hard time falling asleep before 2 am. My usual wake-up time is around 9ish. Getting up at 5:30 am takes a lot out of me. However I did survive and it wasn't all that bad for a long weekend. Some of the guys were cranky but that is a usual thing there.



One of my highlights of the weekend is when hubby came home with these for me for Easter. Pink roses are one of my favorite flowers and it thrilled my heart. They are still as beautiful today as they were on Friday.

Here is a close up of one of them. Roses are so delicate in there shape and these ones smell so good. My hubby is such a sweetheart and I feel blessed by having him in my life. Now we do have out fights and we had a doozy of one the other day but we manage to talk it out and then press forward. Neither one of us are ones that hold grudges and we are able to forgive one another quite easily. It is hard to believe that we have been married for almost 3 years now as it feels like we were just married not so long ago. I think it helps that we have some of the same interests and that we started out relationshio as friends and we are still friends -- in fact he is my very best friend. When I was a little girl I said I always wanted to marry my best friend and that is exactly what I did. YAY me!!!!!

I have been working on more cards the past few days and have been enjoying seeing the outcome. When I sell something from my etsy store I used to send a little note of thanks with my buisness card. Well, I bought this really pretty paper so I decided to make mini - mini cards that are blank inside so that I can write thank you to my customers -- they are just a little bit bigger than my buisness card so it fits so nicely inside. I love them so much that I have decided to sell them in my store. I listed the tourquise and brown ones yesterday and have two more sets that I need to list -- will do that in the next day or so -- I have them in purples and greens and pinks and greens -- Here is the one that I listed so far . I like all the colors so I am making myself a set of all of them and am also using them in the books that I send to others with my bookcrossing and bookmooching.

Well I guess that is all for now -- gotta go and do some of my "chores".

blessings ~ Shell

going to scream now

I had a bit of a challenging day -- things just didn't seem to go my way. Found out that we need new kitchen taps and that we had a puddle on the kitchen floor that needed to be cleaned up. Speaking of cleaning -- I was doing a load of laundry and as I was pouring the liquid soap , I somehow lost control of the bottle and yep, you guessed it, splat!!! There was liquid soap everywhere -- including on the carpet. It made me want to scream in frustration. ok ok ok , so I actually screamed in frustration, got some clean towels and cleaned up my mess --- it was a good thing that I was doing laundry as I now had a load of towels to do!!! lol The

silly thing is, last week I did almost the same things but with a bottle of fabric softener. Least my home smells fresh and clean. After cleaning up my mess I couldn't help but think of a card that I recently made.





I spoke with my mom today on the phone. She called me with the latest happenings in her world. She is so funny. If I haven't talked with her in a few days she will ramble on and on with all the "gossip" -- barely coming up for air. She often will include exactly what she bought at the grocery store and exactly what they had for the last few days of dinners. She had my neice and her family visiting over the weekend so she was calling to share with me how that went. I miss living close to them and often find myself feeling so dis-jointed from them all.



I have to work this weekend. Am I looking forward to that? -- not really. At least it is only for the Saturday and Sunday. I didn't take the Friday or Monday shifts. I was going to take the Friday but hubby is off so I thought it would be nice to spend the day with him. The Monday was a no because I really didnt want to hunt people down for pee tests. I work casual at a drug and alcohol treatment centre and on Sundays (this weekend Monday due to the Easter weekend) -- I have to hunt the guys down and tell them to go to security and provide a urine sample -- needless to say, this is not my favorite part of the job --



I am hoping to make a few more cards this week as I have a few ideas brewing in this noggin of mine.



Blessings ~ Shell

every journey starts with a step

This is my first entry of my blog. I have to admit I have blogged before and from time to time -- in fact, I still do. I have had a "diary" on opendiary for many years now. I use it to write down my prayers to God. I am still keeping it and am still going to use it, but I wanted to start something new and different as well. I have been wanting to share a different facet of myself for sometime now. This will be a new step for me on a new journey.

I have so many interests and would love to share them with the world. Hobbies are abundant in my life and I hope to maybe share a little of my enjoyment of them with you.

One of my hobbies is reading and coupled with that -- bookcrossing.

bookcrossing:
n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

If you haven't heard of bookcrossing and you enjoy reading maybe you would like to check it out. It is a book tracking site. I have been involved for years and have enjoyed it so much. If you join let them know that snowy652 referred you.

My latest book that I am reading is called "Heart's Haven" by Lois Richer so far so good. It touched a lot on the power of forgiveness -- I will most likely finish it later today. It is then going to be sent to a member of bookmooch.com -- yes another one of my hobbies -- trading books with people from bookmooch. Check it out and let them know that snowy sent you.

Another of my hobbies is crafts -- wow do I love working on crafts. I opened up my own little etsy store and am so enjoying it. The latest thing that I listed was a bookmark of a parrot. Two of my favorite things -- crafts and books meet up and I logically end up with a bookmark.

My goal is to write at least a few times a week.

Till next time

Shell