Wednesday, February 27, 2008

I WAS SUPER SPOILED TODAY!!!




Oh my gosh, today was such a great day for me. I am totally amazed at how much love I've been receiving lately. I am so not used to all this attention being showered on me because I'm usually the one spoiling everyone around me!

So, with all that said, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

First off, I had been looking for the Martha Stewart Scallop Heart Punch and couldn't find it around me so when Aleida, from Studio Calico message board put out a "HELP" post about the punch and someone found it for her, I thought maybe I could ask too. Well, I did and sure enough, Michelle found one for me and she sent it to me without even waiting to get paid. That was really awesome! I got the package yesterday but just finally opened it today.

Here is a picture of me with my punch from Michelle! Do you see that smile??


Here's another one with an even bigger smile!

And here's one with my really excited smile just like one of my daughter's pictures!

As if that wasn't enough, I also received the package that Dawn, also from Studio Calico had sent me with the autographed business card of Donna Downey. She had a class with Donna last weekend and I had posted that I love Donna Downey so she had asked her for an autograph for me! How sweet! Even when she's having a blast, she still thought of her newly found online friend :-)


So, you think that's enough for one day??? NO! I got another package this time from April. She said she was going to send me a "little something" to celebrate my 100th post on the Studio Calico message board but OH MY GOSH, this little something is not little at all. It had all kinds of goodies in there and even though I thought I had lots of stuff already, all of the stuff she sent me are things I don't even have. She also surprised me with the Heidi Swapp Butterfly mask that I had been looking for too. By this time, I couldn't take a picture of myself anymore because I couldn't help but cry! I kept asking myself, what did I do to deserve all of these?


This was everything she sent me! I love the little box with the ribbon. What I love most of all is the handmade card. Inside the heart shaped box were lots of chipboard crowns and stuff along with some tags and buttons.

This is what was in that little paper box with the ribbon. It has lots of little cute things like felt flowers, Heidi Swapp Ghost shapes, and that little adorable embossed birds in different colored cardstock. It is so amazing! I love everything!

Also today, my bestfriend and I went out and she treated me out for lunch at Olive Garden. I had told her before that I had never been there because since my husband is so picky when it comes to food, he wouldn't have anything to eat there so she decided to treat me out there for lunch. I had Chicken Marsala and it was DELICIOUS.

So, what could be better than a day like this???? Again, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, to Michelle, Dawn and April! You guys are simply the best! How can I ever pay your generosity? Just know that I will never forget this day! You made me feel soooo special and loved.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

My New Happy Little Rain Boots!



I got this new boots a couple of days ago from Mervyns when I saw that they were having a sale for 70% off. I had an additional 15% off burning a hole in my purse that was expiring soon and I've been wanting to buy a rain boots so I thought this was the best time to get it. It's been raining a lot here lately, in fact, in rained almost all week and I hate getting my nice shoes wet and when I saw this, I just had to get it. I love the colors and it's very comfortable. I think they're "happy" colors. I wore it for the first time last night and I just love it. My husband doesn't like it of course because he has such a "plain" taste for anything and he thinks it's so "bold" looking but I absolutely love it so it doesn't matter since I'm the one who will be wearing it not him. I even got a compliment from some stranger last night as I was walking back to my car at Michael's parking lot :-) So, wanna know how much I paid? It was originally $45 but I walked away with it for just a little bit over $12 after taxes. I thought it was a good buy!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Gilda's Carbonara Spaghetti


I have been wanting to post this recipe here for a while to share. It's a dish that I have been asked to make several times by my friends because they loved it. I have loved Carbonara since I lived in Japan but when I came here to the US, I haven't been able to find a place that serves it so one morning when I was watching The Filipino Channel, this Filipino Cooking Teacher (not really sure if he's a chef) Sandy Daza was making his family's version of Carbonara and of course I had to watch it. Some of the stuff he had in his recipe are stuff I don't eat and I also like my spaghetti with a lot of sauce, so I altered it a bit to my taste and came up with my own.

It's really easy to make but it's very yummy!

Here is the recipe:
Spaghetti Noodles
1 package of Thick Bacon (cut into strips)
3 cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
3 cubes of Chicken Bouillon
Salt
Pepper
2 Extra Large Eggs or 3 Large Eggs (unbeaten)
2/3 cup of Parmesan Cheese
3 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 cup water

Cook the spaghetti noodles according to package directions or as you like your noodles then set aside.
Cook your bacon until it turns brownish in color and until most of the fat is cooked. Then drain as much fat as you can from the Bacon and add the minced garlic. When the garlic is golden brown, add the cup of water then wait till it is boiling a little bit and add the chicken bouillon cubes. Continue to mix until the cubes are melted. Add the Heavy Whipping Cream and Salt & Pepper (to taste). Wait for it to boil while mixing occasionally.

When the mixture becomes a little bit thicker, add the noodles and on top, add the eggs and the parmesan cheese. Mix really well for about a minute and it's done. Enjoy!

***If you have left over, refrigerate it and when you're ready to have more, just heat it up on the stove and add a little bit of heavy whipping cream or milk so it's not too dry. The noodles will suck up all the sauce so it will be dry after refrigerating it.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Back again....with a project finished!

Okay, I'm back again. I have no idea why this blogging thing is really not working really well for me! I keep promising to update more or at least even once a week but it doesn't happen. Every time I feel like I want to update, I feel like I need to post some kind of picture to make it somewhat interesting. The problem with that is, I am very lazy with uploading my pictures to my computer. It usually happens only when my memory stick is full and that is one of the bad side about having a pretty big memory capacity. In other words, I'm the biggest procrastinator!!! So, there, I admit it!

So, last night, since I couldn't sleep, I thought I might as well make good use of my time and start a project I've been wanting to do. Since seeing the inspiration about a month ago from Becky Higgins' Website, I had started looking for all the materials I needed to do the project but I got kind of busy with stuff and never really got around to it till last night.

Here is her version of the project:


And here is my version:

I got the plate holder from Michaels at the clearance section. The original price was $29.99 but it was clearanced for $12.00 and I was able to use a 40% coupon on top of that.

The frames were bought from Walmart for $1.98 each.

I printed the pictures from my own printer after editing them in Photoshop Elements. I kind of made a boo boo and messed up on the size of the picture. It was supposed to be an 8 x 10 picture and that is what I had put the size to be but I didn't know that I had to check the box that says "crop to size" so it will actually be an 8 x 10 photo after it's been printed. That is the reason there is a white space on the top and the bottom. I was going to reprint the photos but I didn't have enough photo papers to print them on so I decided to just stick with it knowing that I probably would want to change the pictures later on anyway. David put it up for me when he came home from work and I am really loving it. On each of the picture it says the words "Always", "Love", "One", "Another". My favorite photo is the last one of my two kiddos. Don't they just look adorable???

So, one project on my list has been checked! Yay for me!