Something's Drawn {link-up}

I'm linking up at Mrs. K & Captain J for "Something's Drawn"

Basically, you post the ugly, the good and the bad every Wednesday

from the cellphone app "Draw Something".

Here are mine:

harp

Don't forget to link-up your good, bad and ugly

work from "Draw Something".

Strawberry Tart

Remember this pin on Pinterest around Valentine's Day?

    Source: coloredgrains.wordpress.com via ines on Pinterest

Today, I finally made it...

   

(recipe taken, and amended, from Pinterest)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup canola or plain vegetable oil
• 1 cup flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar or white wine vinegar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups of strawberries cut up in quarters

Procedure:

• Pre-heat oven to 350F
• Mix the egg, milk, vinegar and oil in a big bowl.
• Add the sugar and vanilla essence. Mix well.
• Add the flour and baking powder, and mix well with a whisk till smooth.
• Pour the batter into a round baking dish, which has been buttered or oiled a bit on the sides and bottom to prevent the cake from sticking.
• Now mix one tablespoon sugar with the quartered strawberries. Arrange the strawberries on the top of the batter, pushing each piece of strawberry in a bit into the batter.
• Bake it in the oven at 350F for 60 minutes or till the cake is done and a fork inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter is my weakness. I can eat spoonfuls of it and have no shame. I stumble upon this peanut butter cookie and I was in heaven.

Peanut Butter Cookies

(recipe taken from All Recipes)

Ingredients:

• - 1 cup unsalted butter
• - 1 cup peanut butter
• - 1 cup white sugar
• - 1 cup packed brown sugar
• - 2 eggs
• - 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• - 1 teaspoon baking powder
• - 1/2 teaspoon salt
• - 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

- heat oven at 375

- Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars; beat in eggs.

- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into batter. place dough in a fridge for an hour

- Roll dough into small balls and put on baking sheets. Flatten each ball with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern. 

- bake for about 10 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Do not over-bake.

Banana Bread Recipe

I am one of those people that hates throwing food away. Its such a waste of money...and food.
DH is a picky eater, so, when it comes to food I have to make sure to ask myself, "will DH eat this?" Lately, we both have been going through a banana-phase, until recently...when I bought a bunch and none got eaten. Normally, I would throw them away, but I found a perfect banana recipe. This is where I taught myself (via google) that the riper the banana, the better they are for banana bread. You learn something new everyday :)

Banana Bread
(recipe taken from Simple Recipes)

Ingredients:

- 4 ripe bananas, mashed

- 1 1/2 cups of flour

- 1 cup of sugar

- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

- 1 teaspoon of baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

- 1/3 cup of butter, melted

- 1 egg, beaten

Directions:

- heat the oven to 350

- in large bowl mash the bananas and then add the butter and mix well.

- add the sugar, egg, salt, baking soda and vanilla and mix well.

- add the flour and mix until all is well blended (its ok its its a bit lumpy, that just some of the bananas that weren't fully mashed)

- pour into a loaf pan and bake for 1 hour

Sick

I hate being sick! I mostly deny that I'm sick until I'm coughing like a lunatic, sneezing as if I am allergic to the air and blowing my nose to the point where I am contemplating shoving a tampon so it would stop dripping and even then, I still deny I'm sick.

This past weekend was one of those "why-do-I-have-to-be-sick-on-the-weekend" weekend. However, Sunday I gave in and admitted to DH that I may be sick. At that point I was staring at him in my sweats with my greasy hair slicked back and with tissue paper sticking out from anywhere I could nudge it in. <--- HOTNESS!

I would like to tell you all that I didn't lift a finger Sunday, but knowing my OCD-self, I had to clean the house mixed in with some lovely wheezing and coughing. Though, DH did make me some yummy gumbo:

I did also manage to almost devour my homemade banana bread - which I made for DH but I had to make sure it was safe for him to eat ;) - and drank obscene amounts of Chai tea (my fave!)

When your sick, do you deny it or do you pull the "man-cold"?

Jane Wayne Day

What is Jane Wayne Day? You are basically a [insert military branch here] for a day! And yesterday I was a Marine for a Day.

Let me just say that as I'm typing this I feel every muscle on my body, including the hairs on my head, hurt. It took me 10 mins yesterday, after the event, to get the the courage to climb up the stairs to take a shower. Getting undressed was another story and dinner, "hello Domino's :)"

But aside from all the bitching and complaining I had so much fun!

The morning started of by a greeting from our CO and the Sgt. Major. It was then followed by safety instructions from the Corpsmen - who, bless their hearts, where so paranoid and freaked out by the Spouses climbing in and out the 7tons - and later by our squad leaders (who did a phenomenal job!). We were then taken to the CFT field and we all basically almost died from the crazy CFT obstacle course (thankfully, we didn't have to run the 3 miles. The obstacle included: running, lifting amo cans and carrying them, low-crawl, baby-crawl, throwing a ball which where all followed by yells of motivation by one of the Sgt's (I swear, I hated the Sgt after that...hahaha). Oh! and lets not forget the lifting of the amo cans up and down for 2 mins...yours truly probably got the lowest CFT score (GO ME!).

amo cans

me running...doesn't happen often

We were then shown around where our hubby's worked and what they do and so forth which was then followed by a lovely MRE. I had the very delicious buffalo chicken, though I wish I had a plate :)

Lunch was followed by the rifle range. Now, I've never shot anything before so at this point I felt a bit overwhelmed, but I did pretty well. I actually shot my target 15 times in a row (GO ME!). So, I may not be in shape, but at least I have aim :)

getting taught how to use a gun

getting taught how to use a rifle

Conclusion, I knew I would never be able to be a Marine and now, I REALLY know I can never be a Marine.

I had an amazing time and so did the other Spouse. The Marines, Sailors and FRO did an outstanding job....THANK YOU!

Cupcakes, the Red Velvet Kind

This isn't my first time blogging about cupcakes,

let alone Red Velvet cupcakes.

I haven't baked in a while. 

At first I didn't have time. 

Then, I lost interest. 

Now, the interest is back!

DH's Marines asked begged me to 

make them cupcakes...so, I finally caved in. 

I spend the ENTIRE afternoon baking cupcakes for

the Marines...and of course, some for me :)

The result:

mark. Giveaway

  I am giving away to one (1) lucky winner a 

On the Dot Neutral Eye Color Compact

RULES:

1) "like" my FB page [click here] 

2) comment saying you want to win this

palette

leave a comment for each action done

(total of 2 entries)

Giveaway will end Wednesday (3/7) at 6pm PST

(winner will be announced then!)

G'LUCK!

*PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT IN THIS POST*

Hobbies

(image credit: Sage Wedding Pros)

I love them.

First it was blogging, 

then sewing 

and now I have gone onto

scrapbooking

(DH spoiled me with a cricut for my bday)

 and I cannot tell you how great of a 

stress outlet it is. 

(personally, I'm not counting reading because 

I always read...make sense?)

Whenever I'm irritated or stressed I go upstairs,

shut the door to my "idea" room and

swarm myself with sewing ideas,

crafting ideas or blog thoughts.

In the end, 

I forget I'm stressed out.

I'm not a pro at any of them, 

but at the same time...

you don't have to.

As long as you love doing

these hobbies...

that's all that really matters.

Do you have hobbies? What are they?

Does it help you de-stress?