Chicken curry deliciousness

I posted this the other night and it seems to have disappeared into the ether. So here it is again. Scrumtralescent chicken curry.

 

For sauce: 
 
 

 

 

2 tsp curry powder

 

10 peppercorns
3 sticks cinnamon

1 tbsp garam masala

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp chicken bullion granules

2 tsp ginger powder

½ cup plain yoghurt

½ onion chopped

3 tbsp minced garlic

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1 cup shredded frozen hash browns or 5 medium red potatoes boiled and cubed

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts cubed

¼ cup oil

1 ½ cups water

 

For rice: 
 
 

1 carrot grated

2 cups brown rice

2 tbsp butter

8 peppercorns

2 sticks cinnamon

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp chicken bullion granules

Cook rice according to package adding peppercorns, cinnamon sticks , curry powder, and chicken granules while its cooking. When rice starts to plump up add carrots and once its finished cooking add butter and stir. While rice is cooking heat oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Once its hot add curry powder, peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, garam masala, chicken bullion, and ginger powder. Heat for about 5 minutes and add garlic, onion, yoghurt, tomatoes and chicken and cook chicken till done in the center. Add water and simmer about 20 minutes or till chicken is tender. Serve curry over rice.

 

 

 

Will work for craft supplies

Have any of you ever felt this way? Felt like setting up a stand on the side of the road with examples of your work and holding up a sign that says, “Will work for craft supplies” Thats me at times. I never have a clue, when someone asks me how much I charge for doing something, what to tell them. Its one of those self-esteem issues that have plagued me from childhood. “What, that? Thats not that big a deal, you can just have it. Its not very good anyway. Well if you really feel you should pay me, how bout you pay for the supplies and I get to keep whats left over. Sound good?” That was me making nifty macrame bracelets on my lunch break when I worked at Wal Mart. I felt the same when I worked on that project for my MIL. I just don’t feel capable of putting a value on something and making it stick if it is something made by or sold by me. Am I alone in this?

In other news I’m stuck in the basement today finishing up the garage sale that I started back in May. Better sales, less money because last time there was a stove to be sold. Gave away 2 of my sweet little baby puppies and two more are on their way out which made me almost cry. I wanted so bad to keep them because I love them all, but then I remembered that they won’t stay small forever. Heck they’re already bigger at 6 weeks than Pepper was at 8. But thats irrelevant. They’re so sweet!

Just a quick note

Not too much to report today. Fighting the futher-mucking windows updates again to everything is going at less than half speed. I went to Hobby Lobby last night with my MIL and J11 and J14. While there my MIL was eyeing the overpriced premade scrapbooky looking frames and boxes looking for a wedding present for the neighbor’s daughter. I said, thats easy I could make you one of those no problem. So J11 and I went back through the store and I picked up items almost instinctively and just stacked them together without really paying attention to what I had. Somehow I knew it would work and when I get that feeling I don’t question it. You could call it your muse, or for me its a compulsion and I know not to argue. So I came home last night and sat down with the bag on the couch and in about half an hour I had this.

Early early *yawn*

So last night we were under a tornado watch for a while but Jarell and I didn’t know it until after the watch had ended. I had been playing games on my computer and when I went to bed Jarell mentioned that there was non-stop lightning up North-East of us and I decided to check the weather on my phone. When I got to weather.com it said we were under a tornado watch which worried me as I-70 is known for being a tornado magnet. Then the next page I went to said we were only under sever thunderstorm warning and I was by then concerned enough to get back out of my nice warm bed to check on the computer to see which one it really was. I was paranoid and you know how it is- if you check it will be fine but if you don’t bad things will happen that you will blame yourself for. We have 8 puppies and 3 adult dogs outside on a regular basis and there was no way they were staying out there if there was a tornado watch. So I boot up the laptop and I wait. And wait some more… and then Inotice that the stupid Windows update that has been plaguing me all week (I have dial up through t-mobile) is downloading again. So the Internet was at a crawl because Microsoft has made it more complicated to disable their updates in Vista than I have figured out yet. Finally at 12:30 I was able to find out through the National Weather Service that it was indeed only a TSW (thunderstorm watch) and therefore the dogs would be fine in their houses outside. I then stumbled on back to bed and went to sleep. Now for those of you who are night owls and I know there are several, I am/can be too. But the issues with the stomach crap have returned (this time finally identified as an almost life-long problem with IBS- yeehaw) in a lesser form after the homeopathic remedy I took. They have been making my nights very sleepless altho not quite as bad as when I went to Seattle last September and the hotel beds were too small for both Jarell and I. So sleep has been a much coveted commodity here lately. I have to let my homeopathist know that the junk is back so that we can edit the remedy which will be just tons of fun, but whatever it is, its doing some good, because I know what this was like the last time and its not as bad this time.

In other news, I’m searching for information about the age of some fabric. Namely the stuff I used to make that darling little purse from yesterday’s post. The fabric that I bought still on the roll is 35 inches wide and one end of the bolt has a picture of a couple from I’d say the 17 hundreds in a dance pose and it says Courtesy color fast. Does anyone know anything about this brand or how to tell how old the fabric is based on the width? It is 100% cotton according to the bolt, but aside from the color number, thats all the info it gives me. I’m just really curious because I’m guessing that this stuff must be at least from the 70’s and maybe even as old as the later 50’s due to the color choices and designs used. If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them. For now, I must away to feed the slobbering masses. Happy Memorial day folks.

Melissa 

Pictures

I promised pictures and pictures I have! I have figured out a neat little trick to make picture uploading easier; use my blogger account and don’t publish the post. As difficult as this may sound, its still easier than trying to load my pictures to Flick’r and then blogging each one individually. This way I load them all, upload the new post from blogger and add my text here in WordPress.

My day today thus far has been very nice. We finished putting together the reunion cookbooks that we’ve been putting off and then I was given some wonderful items from a fellow freecycler. They will go towards fixing an old Irish style pub for Jarell in our basement. Plus she gave me some spiderplant starts which are a special favorite of mine because my gramma who died 7 years ago. When I was little she instilled in me the love of all growing things. She gave me numerous starts of african violets and spider plants which because I was 5 didn’t live too long but they always made me happy because I loved my gramma.

 

Printmaster
goodies from Mom-o-matic, etsy, and swap-bot

 

THE Necklace
An icicle doll for a swap

the purse I made
and a sideways pic of the purse
My haul from Jo-Anne’s

Shameless

Yeah that was a shameless (Garth Brooks sings in my head as I type) stunt I pulled yesterday, but I really was curious to know who reads this and I appreciate you guys stopping by. More crafty pictures should be arriving soon. I’ve become a bit lazy about it due to the fact that its a bit more difficult to load pictures on WordPress than it is on blogger. Major bummer and the only thing I would change but I’m thinking I may get a little ambitious here in a sec and run over to Mozilla and cheat on wordpress. Thank you KathiD for the comment on the new look. I liked the green really well but it cut off more than half of my title and then I found out if you don’t have a paid account, you can’t put in layouts from other sources and save them. What a stinker. Fortunately wordpress has some very nice free layouts and we all know free is good.

Here for your viewing pleasure ma cheries are some crafty pimpin pictures

This one is a mermaid made for me by my partner, Valorie, in the Mermaid Swap over at Bella Enchanted

It inspired me to make this little girl. She’s not topless, her shirt just blends in Really well.

And when I got done, I wanted to make more like her so for the first time in my life I made a pattern! I am thinking this may become some sort of swap.

Thats all for now folks. Hope you enjoyed the show and I will be picking a name tomorrow from the comments on yesterday’s post to send something to so think about what you ladies might want.

Just random things in my life

I planted my tomatoes outside in the big garden today and it made me think of the happenings of Sunday. Did I forget to mention that? Well!

Sunday Jarell and I were awakened at about 9-ish after staying up till all hours of the night before watching movies. (No seriously– thats what we did. I’m married so I don’t have to lie about it… probly should but…) As I was saying we were awakened by a very loud horn honking outside our bathroom window. I was confused and disoriented and muttered “what the hell was that?” while stumbling out of bed to get some clothes on as our bathroom is attached to the bedroom and hidden by two never closed french doors that, with the window being open, provided no privacy at all. I know admitting that I sleep in my altogethers is tmi but it was hot as hades, (I’m in Missouri) and Jarell has resisted turning on the A/C thus far due to retardedly high electricity prices.

Back on track. Jarell was not quite as disoriented as I was and got his jeans on and went, shirt in hand, to the window to see who was honking at us. It was Jarell’s mom making sure we were still alive because seven very under the influence unsavory characters from the soap opera that is the asshole’s princess’ Jarell’s older brother’s life had come down to our house and nobody could get in touch with us. (Jarell’s phone not having signal and mine being in the living room) They came around looking for a car that they claimed he (the princess) never paid them for. This wouldn’t surprise me at all knowing how TP is and all but Jarell said as far as he knew they had agreed to trade the P.O.S. car for some speaker equipment. The owner was there when Jarell and two of his other brothers picked it up so it was with this guy’s permission. The story goes that they trusted the princess to get them the money. Bah! Either way they’re idiots. If they trusted him duh! and if they were lying well…. They were haranguing my FIL about it and he said he didn’t even know where the princess was let alone about the car. They said they could show him and he said “Great! He owes me money too!” (Another long but true story about what happens when you let your bad kids have access to your bank account without supervision. $45,000 later… )This all transpired before they came to check on us and he followed them into town and here’s where I get confused. They headed the opposite direction of the town he is currently loafing in and were pulled over at the local BP gas station by a police officer. 5 of the 7 were then arrested for outstanding warrants and my FIL and husband moved the disgusting and offending vehicle from our property to the side of the road where the cops could tow it without having to enter onto private land. My darling dearest then went one step further and notified his friend (incidentally an ex of the princess) who happens to be a cop in training and told her the whole story and she got a tow sticker put on the car. It should be gone tomorrow as the 3 day warning period is up. This all happened before 11 on Sunday morning. Then Jarell and I headed over to his parent’s house, picked up their trusty Yanmar tractor and returned home. We plowed, rototilled, and degrassed the whole darn thing and yesterday I planted all my seeds. This morning, as I mentioned above, I put in my tomatoes. Jarell came home for lunch, looked out the kitchen window, and said,” Wow you already have stuff growing in your garden!” I smiled indulgently and said, “Yes darling but I started those back in March, and you helped me carry them out there this morning, remember?” He said, “Oh yeah… I forgot.”

I watered those babies this evening serenaded by hundreds of peepers, coyote pups yipping in the distance, and their parents howling the neighborhood gossip over all the rest and have a lot of hope for them. I thought of mon cher invisibles and decided someone out there might be amused by these events. They were highly amusing to me especially when I heard my FIL ask my husband for information concerning the whereabouts of a certain car belonging to TP that was paid for with some of his ill gotten means from the other story I mentioned earlier. I also had a good laugh when I heard that TP called his semi-estranged mother the other day and said something to the effect of, “Well I guess me and my wife will be moving back in with you guys cuz we’re about to be homeless here in a couple days.” At which point my MIL said her nice version of Hell No. I feel bad for his wife as she is almost 18 and he is almost 27 and a more domineering prick I’ve never met. She was disowned by her parents for marrying him (or so I hear) and she is currently supporting them working at Wendy’s now that he has been cut off from all the business accounts that he had access to. She must have been really flattered by his attentions or something because they hadn’t really known each other too very long when they got married and she’s still a minor for god’s sake! He, however could get off his lazy butt and get a job if chose to, but he chooses instead to slowly sell off all the junk he bought on his parent’s tab and bum money of his little sister. Pathetic! I often wish fervently out loud that he would just get arrested for one of the numerous illegal things he’s done, but theres nothing I can prove so that option may be a while in coming. In the meantime, I told J11 to tell his wife that despite the heinous things I know he’s told her about me, if she ever needs someone to rescue her, I will be there. I haven’t met the poor girl but she’s still my sister-in-law and knowing how he is, when the shit hits the fan, she will need someone.

Sorry this is so long and disjointed. I needed to get all that crap out of my head and I try not to talk to people who know the main characters about all of this if they are not in the family.

Have a good evening folks!

Tink and the babies

Originally uploaded by littlesongbird17

Well I’m going to try to post some pics of my puppies as I have had a  request for some. They’re darlings and I got a cute one of all the babies piled on Tinkerbell this morning. Aparently she has not quite achieved the weening with them and poor baby every time she tried to eat they’d latch on so that she was running from side to side getting a mouth full here and then there while escaping their gaping maws. Eventually she must have given up because I looked outside and there she was under all 8 of them. I couldn’t resist taking pictures of them as they are the sweetest darlings.

In other news, I won a contest! I’m grinning from ear to ear because I had made a comment about a necklace made by Lotta of Mom O Matic on an interview she was featured in and today I got an email saying my comment had won! (serious run-on sentence there!) I was ecstatic and the necklace is beautiful! I feel all giddy and grinnified. (thats a word in my dictionary) In response to this generosity, I would like to give something away as well. I keep trying, but haven’t heard anything so far. So here’s the deal. I have tons of fabric stashes, dolls I’ve made, the ability to make some pretty nifty ATC’s and many other talents, not to mention a rather impressive paper collection so if you guys will comment and tell me what you’d like to receive out of these things for free, I will send the winner something. I am taking requests. I sew things besides dolls. I paint a little and am (if I do say so myself) very good at copying. That doesn’t sound right. Let me show you the spongebob aprons I made for my husband and myself.

Slow goin

Well I haven’t been on here since Sunday but thats mostly because theres really nothing to report from the last several days. I had to run one of our wee littles to the vet on Monday because our four month old puppy thought the little guy was big enough to be a playmate and she rolled him all over the ground causing a severe bruise to his neck. It swelled all up with nasty gunk inside and the vet had to cut it open and de-gunkify it. Then we had to take him back today to get the wound drained again. Little Pugsly has been very well behaved through all of this and took it rather well. He just wants to play and I’m amazed by his resiliency. At four weeks old he’s rather remarkable. Today he got to share a nice big bowl of goats milk with J11’s kitty and he just thought that stuff was the bee’s knees. His mama is trying to ween him and his sibling as their little teeth turn into razors and so that milk was a nice treat I’m sure. He hasn’t quite figured regular food out yet but he tries. I’m sorta sorry we can’t keep this little guy but I decided I would not keep any males around and am going to attempt to stick to that resolve. Girls don’t get other girls pregnant is my simple logic. Obviously this isn’t a fool proof plan or we wouldn’t have the puppies in the first place but Tink got out of the house while she was in heat and ran off for a while and that as they say was that. This is a bit of a long rambling post for having nothing to say. I’ve got to go to the post office today and send Lolita to her new home. She goes with the story of her life and a little tag with her name on it and I’m a little sad to see her go, but its a good excuse to make a new little dolly and I think the next one is going to be the Littlest Voodoo doll. I have a mermaid that needs a top and bit more embellishment and she’ll be ready to go in the store. Check me out at www.whitecoralbelles.etsy.com guys and look the little ladies over.

Good morning good morning!

Another day another dollar! I can actually say that due to the sweet person who put Lolita in a treasury on Etsy decided to bring her home to stay with her. Its gonna be kinda sad as her little brother Mickey is still only partially finished and I may have to break down and finish him up myself but was trying to leave that for J11 since he was her creation in the first place. I just came up with the idea and asked her to draw him for me. If and when he ever goes into the shop and sells his proceeds will go to her so its a good thing, but he’s still naked aside from his bow tie and long flowing black hair and he is a little bit balding so he’s not quite the stud he should be as of yet. Ah well c’est la vie. And just in case any of you think I’m a little odd for occasionally throwing in french phrases, I am semi trilingual. I speak some French and some Spanish as well. I studied 4 years of French in high school and college and 2 of Spanish and then the whole living in Mexico for a month in a little redneck town where almost no one spoke English made for a remarkable learning aid. That said, I prefer French, and can’t wait to go to France or at least Quebec some day. Mexico was too much like visiting my mom in Nor Cal as she lives in the Mexican part of town. This is okay as they are wonderful people, but it wasn’t much of an adventure. The country down there was Gorgeous, but their complete lack of regard for the environment or care for their surroundings frankly disgusted me. They say the US is bad about pollution but I think “they” ought to go to Sombrerete and smell those diesel engines with no sign of emissions control for a day or two. It was bad enough that we all got head aches from the smell of the fumes the first several days we were there. And when you have landfills that are literally just dumping sites right outside your city limits and these are comprised of flat ground and fetid bogs, you really aren’t worthy of the Arbor Day award or anything like that.

On a more positive note, Happy Mother’s Day! My mom is a wonderful individual who lives in Northern California. I haven’t been out there in over 2 years which makes me sad, but hopefully soon I will return. I am a lot like my mother in the sense that the ocean has always been very important to me and barring being close to it I want lots of water nearby. Its funny since I really don’t swim well but the Pacific ocean just means a lot to me. For those of you that know the area, we would make trips to Bodega bay every summer as soon as it got warm enough. My mom is from the Chico/PG/Monterey area originally but now Bodega is about 45 minutes away. I enjoyed the warm waters in Florida but its just not the same as accustoming your body to that arctic current. My mom is also an incredibly talented artist, songwriter, musician, cook and so much more. She taught me a lot of what I know and even tried to give me piano lessons when I was younger but neither one of us could quite get that sorted out. I’d like to close this post with a picture she sent Jarell and me for Christmas and we’ll see how it turns out.

I’m off to take roses to my stand-in family at the Dollar General where I was working last year on this day. It seems like a nice tradition to start and keep up.

Butterfly

Happy Mother’s Day all