Poppin’ Into Cinnamony Goodness

I have mentioned Pinterest several times lately. I am in love with it and in love with how it’s changing my life. Not in some huge dramatic
“OH I’M A CHANGED WOMAN!”
while celestial choirs sing the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus in the background
kind of way, but in subtle, creative,
“Wow! I can create this now,”
while a soft breeze rustles the leaves of an aspen tree
kind of way.

I love some of the crafts I’ve been able to create because of pictures I’ve seen on the website.
I saw this:

and decided to make this to put in a care package for Flynn:

This was an inspiration for a photo display at Belle and Beast’s wedding reception.
This:

Became this:

And can we talk about the food idea that are floating around Pinterest?
How about ‘Foil Pack Chicken and Broccoli Dinner’

or
’Baked Ziti’

or our new family favorite
’Bacon Ranch & Chicken Mac & Cheese’

(I included the link for all this yummy goodness. Just click on the photo.)

One of the yummiest bits of goodness I have found recently is

Cinnamon Bear Popcorn
Oh goodness me.
Holy Cow.
For the love of everything good and sweet.

I wasn’t sure I would like it.
Cinnamon bears are okay, but I prefer chocolate covered cinnamon bears.
Sometimes, plain ‘ole cinnamon bears just are either
too hot,
TOO BLAND,
or just Plain BLAH.

But I was putting together a care package to take to Flynn, and I wanted to put something
YUMMY
in there.
This was something different from the cookies or brownies that I usually make.
One of Flynn’s favorite treats is caramel popcorn,
and I thought this might be a fun alternative.

Cinnamon Bear Popcorn

1 cup unpopped popcorn (abt 24 cups popped)
1 – 16 oz bag cinnamon bears
1 cup butter
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups mini marshmallows
red food coloring

1. Pop your corn and lightly salt it.
{I always pop mine into a clean paper grocery bag. Then, when I transfer it into a bowl, I can usually glean out the unpopped kernels, which can hurt when an unsuspecting person bites down on them!}

2. Cut your cinnamon bears into small pieces and set aside. {I used scissors. Much easier than cutting with a knife that gets stickier and stickier with every slice.}

3. In a medium sized sauce pan, combine the butter, sugar and corn syrup. Cook on medium to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes.

4. Remove from heat and add vanilla, marshmallows and food coloring. Mix it well and make sure the marshmallows get melted all the way through.

{I got this yummy gourmet vanilla for FREE! Woo hoo! I love free!}

5. Stir in the cinnamon bears. They’re squealing with delight over being made into such a delicious treat!

6. Now add the mixture to your popcorn.
I suggest you work quickly on this part. With the marshmallows in there, it sets up quickly got hard to stir. My carpal tunnel began screaming bloody murder as I diligently stirred, trying desperately to coat each popcorn kernel. It got a little messy, with kernels trying to escape out of the bowl, so I ended up mixing it in two separate bowls. For me, it kept the mess smaller.

This is where I diverted slightly from the recipe: I didn’t want the popcorn to harden into one rather large, sticky ball, so I ‘poured’ the popcorn onto some waxed paper that I put on the counter and spread the still warm popcorn out on that. My goal was to keep it as separated as possible while it cools.

And this is where I pulled my loved for chocolate into the recipe. Uh huh. Oh yeah…..
I drizzled melted milk chocolate over 1/2 of the recipe.

When I gave it to Flynn and he started eating it, it was worth every painful minute of stirring. He kept saying,

“Oh! This is sooo good!”
and
”Mmmmmm…..”
and
“Betty!….. Seriously!…… This is delicious!”

With or without the chocolate, it was a wonderful treat.
Sure, we can’t make it every weekend, but on a few special occasions throughout the year, I think we’ll definitely be making it again.

Cell Phone Saturday

I got this idea from Tauna. I don’t always remember to take pics on a Saturday with my phone, but this particular Saturday, Scooter and I were visiting with Flynn for the weekend in East Nowhere. These were the only pictures I took. (Even though I had my DSLR and my point and shoot with me.)

 

 

 

(someone didn’t want to help with dishes)

 

 

 

It was a TENSE drive home!

I’ll Just Say It

I hadn’t planned on writing a post today, but I’ve got something on my mind that I have to get out there. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while and I actually wrote a post a few months ago about it, but never published it. It sounded too negative and I try to stay upbeat, so I deleted it.

Today a straw broke this camel’s back. I have to say something. And this is probably the best place to vent because since I switched over here, I have very few people that are reading. But that’s okay. It’s got to be said. (Don’t expect it to be eloquent or beautifully written. I’m pretty upset.)

Today I was reading my Facebook timeline and a ‘friend’ put as her status update:

“…when will this parasite be outta me?”

She was talking about how nauseas her pregnancy is making her.

I’m sure she thinks she was being cute and funny, but I was 110% offended by the comment. I immediately deleted her. Because, honestly, I find it extremely difficult to be ‘friends’ with someone who can be so negative and unappreciative about the wonderful gift that motherhood is. I also find it difficult to be ‘friends’ with someone who is completely insensitive to other people out there.

I know I am not the only person who has struggled with infertility. I am very blessed that Heavenly Father felt that I should have two children. But I fought hard to get them here. And I always wanted more. I know there are other people on that girl’s friend list who haven’t been as blessed as me, who are fighting and struggling daily with the fact that they can’t have children. Not to mention her friends who haven’t had the opportunity to be married and start their families the way they dreamed they’d be able to. Or people like my cousin’s daughter who carried her baby to term, only to deliver a silent baby. I’m sure they’d LOVE to deal with the daily struggles of morning sickness and nausea. I’m sure they’d give ANYTHING to be uncomfortable, feel fat and swollen, and have to pee every 30 minutes.

I’ve had Facebook friends complain about their pregnancies. Lots of them. And I’ve dealt with it. Most of them are still on my friend list. But I think the thing that was most offensive was that this girl called her unborn child a “parasite.”

Really?

This child is a child of God.

A precious baby.

A gift.

I’m sorry she doesn’t feel well. I completely understand.

But really?

Parasite?

We live in a world that is too Politically Correct. People can’t say anything anymore without someone else calling foul. Lawsuits are filed. People are fired. Kids kicked out of school. I try to be patient. I try to understand. I try to see things from other people’s point of view. And I think, for the most part, I’m pretty forgiving. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions. Having different views or opinions is the way life should be. It keeps things interesting. Without differences life would be too unbalanced. We’d walk around in a world that leans too far one way. We couldn’t stand up straight.

And for that reason, I didn’t comment on her status and tell her that she was out of line. I could have said it in a nice, unoffensive way. And maybe I should have. Was that cowardly of me? Perhaps. She’s young (she’s my former visiting teacher) and she probably hasn’t figured out how precious life … and the ability to bear life … is. That, hopefully, will come to her as she grows and matures.

But until then, I choose not to “listen” to her rants anymore. I choose to remove that particular negativity out of my life. And I resolve (again) to try to be more sensitive in what I say publically. Because I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings.

I’d rather help lift people up, rather than tear them down.

Journal Jar

“List the toys you loved as a child.”

Wow! I love walking down memory lane. I had a great, happy childhood and I love thinking back to those carefree days of my youth.

I can’t put this list in any particular order because I loved ALL these things equally.

Velvet.
Do you remember Chrissy and Velvet? The beautiful dolls that had hair that grew long when you pushed their “belly button” and got shorter when you twisted the knob on their backs? My older sister, Wees, had Chrissy and I had Velvet. Isn’t her name beautiful? Her gorgeous dress was made out of purple velvet and her shoes came off and on. I remember that, somehow, I never lost them!
I loved putting her hair in pony tails and pretending we were going to the beauty salon where
they cut her long tresses off.
It was just like real life when I sat in the salon chair of a hair dresser who spent too much time on the phone and not enough time paying attention to her scissors and let me walk out the doors looking like a boy.
One day a random stranger said to my mom,
”Oh! You have such a cute little boy!”
and I remember pushing on my belly button, hoping and praying that somehow/someway my hair would grow back too!
I wish I still had her.

Baby Alive
I don’t remember how old I was when I got Baby Alive, but I remember the Christmas morning
she arrived as a gift from Santa Clause.
That year I wanted a Baby Tender Love like my older sister had, but Santa was wiser
and knew that we needed to have different dolls.
And Baby Alive was cooler. Much cooler.
Don’t get me wrong, Baby Tender Love was cool!
She would drink a bottle of water and would wet her (cloth) diaper!
Baby Alive would do that too!
But, she existed on more than just water.
Oh yes.
She had BABY FOOD
that you mixed up in her own pink bowl and fed to her
using her own pink spoon.
You’d press on her chin and her mouth would start moving up and down in a chewing motion
and you’d spoon that delicious orange pasty food (that looked like apricot baby food)
into her mouth. Why didn’t the food taste better?
(side note: In searching for images, I found a Baby Alive on eBay that is selling for $150!
Now I really wish I still had mine!)

Hippity Hop
All these favorite toys date to pre-1979 because I remember playing with them in the first house we lived in.

The Hippity Hop was a birthday present.
It was red.
And I LOVED it!
I remember bouncing up and down the driveway
and up and down the sidewalk
and up and down the patio on it
I bounced and bounced until I got careless and left it behind the car.
No more Hippity Hop.

Roller Skates
These may make me seem very old
and I guess I am,
but I LOVED my old roller skates.
These skates were perfect because they were always the right size!
They were adjustable, so as your feet grew, the skates grew too!
You wore your own shoes with them, so you could put them on at a moments notice,
skate down to your best friend’s house
and when you got there you could leave them on the front porch and be comfortable
wearing your shoes into her house.
The width of the skates was adjustable as well.
You wore your handy dandy key around your neck and if you wore clompy, larger shoes,
you’d use the key and adjust the part that went around your toes to fit the larger shoes.
If they were smaller, like a pair of sneakers, then you could adjust that too!
If my memory is correct, this picture is EXACTLY what my skates looked like!

Bike
You know what I miss the most on bikes of today?
BANANA SEATS!
And tall HANDLE BARS
Bikes these days just don’t have the same pizzazz that bikes of yesterday had.

My bike was my transportation.
My freedom.
The means to many fun adventures around our neighborhood.
Back in the day it was safe to ride your bike everywhere.
We rode bikes around the block.
We rode them over to the local Dairy Queen, or the penny candy store.
We rode them to the neighborhood swimming pool.
WITHOUT helmets. WITHOUT parental supervision.
We always had our little silver thumb bells on the handlebars
and the colorful plastic thingys that we put on the spokes in the tires.
(Did those come in cereal boxes?)
My bike was like this… only blue. Notice the flower seat? Oh yeah. Stylin’!

I upgraded from my banana seat bike to a 10 speed when I was in 4th grade.
I worked and saved my money for months and months.
My parents paid for 1/2.
I vaguely remember saving around $40, which was a LOT of money.
We bought it at Bill’s Cycle Shop.
It was blue and had blue tape around the handlebars.
If I rode long distances on my banana seat, I rode farther on this.
We moved out to the country and a ride “around the block” was
a 4 mile square. We did it. No hesitation.

Crochet Doll Purse/Bed
So many of my memories are tied up with my best friend, Joni.
Did I own this purse, or did she?
Who knows?
Our toys were loved and played with by both.
But I bet we both owned one.

It would start out looking like any ordinary crochet purse.

But when you opened it up,
it was actually a miniature doll’s cradle!

Crochet Hook
Speaking of crocheting, believe it or not, one of the best things I had as a young girl was a crochet hook.
I was around 10 years old and I learned how to crochet a chain.
I became obsessed.
Crochet a long chain and pull it out.
Start over.
Crochet a long chain and pull it out.
I didn’t learn how to do anything else.
Crochet a long chain and pull it out.
Start over.
I remember sitting on the curb of the sidewalk, crocheting a long chain,
using white yarn.
All of a sudden the idea came to me,
”I wonder if I can crochet a chain as long as the street?”
And so I did!
I’m sure my memory is a little skewed, but I remember sitting on that curb
and making chain after chain after chain.
Finally we measured (Joni and I) and if I remember right,
that chain was almost as long as our street.
I’m sure it was as long as the “important” part of our street.
It went from Brett’s house, past our house, past Jeff’s house and to Joni’s house.
That was the sum of my existence anyway.
It was long enough.

Sunshine Family
Please tell me you remember the Sunshine family!
I loved these guys as much as Barbie and Ken (who should be on this list, but will just be mentioned here).
You had the cute husband with a stylish turtle neck sweater and full head of thick hair,
the beautiful mama and her darling baby who also had a full head of thick hair.
The baby was decked out with all equipment needed:
yellow pajamas, cradle, high chair.
Oh, and if you were lucky, you’d get the set that had TWINS!
My dolls only had one baby.

My Sunshine Family loved each other.
Daddy really loved Mommy.
I took the family, house and all the furniture out to play in the backyard.
Daddy was kissing mommy
and as I squeezed his head to make his lips pucker, his plastic eye popped out.
I searched high and low through the grass, trying to find that brown eye, but I couldn’t.
I hid him from everyone after that because I was so embarrassed.
I didn’t want to have to explain to my mom why he was missing his eye.
It would have been MORTIFYING!
(I cringe writing about it now. But I can’t hide it anymore. I need to tell the truth!)

I always thought Daddy Sunshine looked like
Parker Stevenson whom we loved and adored from the TV Show
The Hardy Boys.
What do you think?

But I always loved Shaun Cassidy more.

Or was it Starsky and Hutch?

Wait! That will have to be a different post:
My favorite TV shows from my growing up years.