Happy Easter 2011

Happy Easter to all blog friends out there!

Im a blend of a few cultures, but I grew up with a certain Italian Pride (and I dont mean Jersey-shore style.)  I can remember growing up, Nonnie (my great grandmother, dad's mother's mother) would have everyone over for Easter.  She was Italian and made WONDERFUL sausage and peppers, Jello eggs, sausage bread, quiche, cheesecake, scrambled eggs, bacon, monkey bread, italian easter bread and many other amazing recipes.  The tradition was continued by my grandmother (Grammie) and a few aunts and uncles throughout the years.  Everyone gathers together - cousins and all and gorge themselves with Italian inspired food to celebrate.

Now, let me just say that I am in NO WAY comparable in my cooking skills to my father, Grammie or Nonnie, but I thought Id try to keep the tradition going this year in the household.  It IS our first year in our first home, so here's the spread:

The centerpiece of the table is sausage and ricotta bread.  Its TOO easy to make, and tastes much better than it appears in the photo below:

Step One: Brown 1 1/2 lbs HOT sausage
Step Two: Add 8 oz mozarella cheese, 4 scrambled eggs (but set aside one yolk) and 1/2 cup ricotta cheese and mix together in bowl

Step Three: Take pizza crust dough and divide in half and spread mixture into surface.  Do the jelly roll.



Step Four: Spread the egg yolk you saved over the top surface of the bread
Step Five: Bake in 350 degree oven until cook thoroughly and tops are golden brown

I also made what my father calls potato pancakes...  it involves hash browns and chopped onions.  You brown the hash browns in a skillet and then add a bunch (like, 12) scrambled eggs to it and let it cook like an omlette. 

Then, youd think to yourself, how do I cook the other side?  How do I flip it like a pancake?  Well, here we go.  You slide the half-cooked omlette onto a plate and then turn the skillet on top of the plate and turn it over. And then it looks like this:

We also made monkey bread.  I usually make this stuff from scratch, but I was feeling a moment of weakness at the grocery store and bought the premade stuff.  It wasnt nearly as good.  But it had to be there.  Its tradition!  I made regular pancakes as well, just in case I messed everything up (which I didnt!) I didnt get to make the Jello eggs since W doesnt like Jello (which I find SUPER un-American).

W read the story of the crusifiction and ressurection while I finished up the cooking which was really nice.  Reminds you WHY we have Easter, after all.  And after, we went out on the back deck and finished our coffee.  It was a great Easter!  I hope you all had a wonderful one as well!

-Elizabeth



Location: The back deck

When: Easter 2011

Feeling:  Covered.  Sheltered.  Clean.  (We had bathday yesterday!)

Its Not Easy Being Green

Happy Belated Earth Day from a pug more talented than my own!

And a Happy early Easter!  Get ready for an awesome Italian Easter Food post!!!

Back to the Books

I was browsing through some of my 'Home Inspiration' files today and came across this photo:

I have recently renewed my love for books.  I was an avid reader when I was young (RL Stein, anyone?) and lost my love for reading when it was no longer "cool" in middle school.  I have recently come across some pretty cool looking books during my antiquing and Ive been adding them to my list of books to read (in addition to some classics that high school neglected to force me to read.)

On my list of books to read this year:

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (I already went and saw the movie, but I want to finish this MASSIVE book!)

The Greatest Story Ever Told  (I mean, what gets better than the story of Jesus!?)

Give Me A Break (John Stossel is my new favorite person in this world)

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Aushwitz (Ive recently been into memoirs)

Up an Running: The Story of a Boy's Struggle to Survive

  -I actually have finished this book.  It was actually pretty good (also a memoir,) but a little too much like work.  It was about a boy who lost his legs in a rapidly progressing illness and the story of his rehabilitation.  As a physical therapist, it was inspiring, but still, felt like work after work.

I have also started collecting some old books Ive found, including one about Thomas Jefferson printed in the 1920s and signed by the author.  Something is so awesome about having a OLD book in your HANDS (and not on one of those fancy e-readers)  Its amazing to turn the fragile pages with your fingertips and feel like you have made your way through as book (and not flicked the pages on a screen.)  I love the looks of bookshelves and libraries in homes and have dreamed of having a wall like the picture above - with a LADDER!  When I first met W, his family had a home with a library with a ladder and Ive been obsessed since!

Speaking of antiques, I bought an old suitcase last weekend from an antique mall (photos to follow in another post... gotta keep ths suspense going on here!) with the intent of making a table like this table I found on DesignSponge:

I need to find some legs and Ill make sure to take lots of photos so that I can document the process of turning an old suitcase into a table (with a hidden compartment to hide stuff!)  Keep checking in... Im hoping to get this project done soon!

Happy Easter, everyone!  I cant wait to have our first Easter in our new home!  I love making new traditions!

-Elizabeth

Chainsaw Massacre

Wind blew a tree onto our back fence!! After panic about what to do, W was able to borrow the neighbor's chainsaw and attack some trees Ax Men style!  It was messy, stressful, and I made sure we were paid upon life insurance before starting.

Chainsaws scare me TO DEATH on Halloween, but I was actually feeling pretty safe during the whole ordeal. (Likely because he wasn't trying to attack me with blood dripping from the chainsaw... imagine that.)  Plus, W has watched enough logging shows that I was sure he'd be a pro. And he was. I was truly impressed!

Confessions of a Baby Bunny Killer

Hows that for an attention-getter blog title? Well, Id like to confess that I am a baby bunny killer.  Last year, I was mowing at our rental home and along the fence there was a bunny nest.  I didnt know, I PROMISE!  I was trying to make our yard pretty, and then the next think you know it was a bunny massacre.  I was contemplating some sort of therapy, but I managed to work through it.  This horror story leads now to our lastest predicament.

There is a robin that has decided to make a nest on the roof of our home.  (I know, our home does make for a wonderful nest!)  W likes to call her a 'Tweety Bird', and when I asked him the species name for such a specific bird I was told 'Tweetus Birdus'.  Lovely.  So this beautiful bird's nest has been destroyed FOUR times by my husband in the past week, and she's still not getting the hint.  We'd love for her to relocate into one of the million trees around our home and NOT the roof.  So, while W was on a business trip, she tried for the fifth time.  She thought Id be a pushover and she thought I was a softie who loves baby birds and pretty blue robin eggs.  She's totally right.  I told W that the nest was back and he INSISTED that I rid of it.  I begged... I tried convincing him that there were eggs in it and that Id then be a baby bird killer IN ADDITION to being a baby bunny killer.  I even tried to tell him that the mother instinct in Tweetus Birdus (TB) could kick in and I might have my eye pecked out.  He didnt care.  He's ruthless.  So, I found myself outside with a broom (and sunglasses to protect my eyes... and a camera to document my baby masssacre... and two pugs running into the middle of the road to chase cars) to destroy something that TB spent hours creating for her family.  With one sweep it was gone.  But, GOOD NEWS!  There werent any eggs in it yet!!!  Phew!  So, I looked at the nest and thought: maybe she can save it, after all.  So I picked it up and relocated it to the nearest tree.  Think she'll get the hint??  (I do vaguely remember something about them smelling the human scent and hating us, but Im going to pretend that's not true and she will appreciate such a kind gesture.)

Confessions of a Baby Bird SAVER?  I think so. I was willing to risk being pecked to death on my way into the house every morning to save those nonexistent pretty blue eggs. I think I have redemmed myself from the bloody massacre of three bunnies in my backyard last year.  Yes? (No.  Definitely no.)

On a totally unrelated note, Id also like to give a shout out (who still says that!?) to some blog friends of mine!  Check out Becky at The Details are in the Fabric and Sarah at Sarah's Got a Sweet Tooth who inspired me to start Many Faithful Journeys, and go meet my new blog friend, Steph at Thoughts From Cali.

-Elizabeth

Blog Stress!

Thanks for all the blog love!  Im still working on my confidence with this blogging thing, and trying to find a template and figure out how to align/center/perfect this isnt as easy as it wuld seem!  I mean, LOOK!  I cant even center my title, for heaven's sake!  Forget posting, Ive got to beautify!  (Thats enough exclamation marks for one day!)

Again, a goodbye from the pugs!

Location: The Bathroom (staring at me while I get ready)

When: Fall 2010

Feeling: Hungry! (Not so) patiently waiting for food!

Ill keep working on this, guys.  It can only get better from here!  Anyone with any insight of how to center my blog title... please feel free to help a blog-sister out! 

Happy Blogday!

Deep breath.

As a new blogger to such a big blogworld, I must say I'm a bit intimidated.  Its been several years of internal debate (Will anyone read? Does anyone care? Are there crazy blogstalkers out there waiting to kill me?) Okay, so a bit of paranoia perhaps, but its always easy to read other people's blogs, but a bit scary to post your life on the INTERNET.  I mean, who is going to read this thing?  a) Crazy exboyfriends, haters from high school? or... b) Friends, Family, new friends I havent met yet?  Im hoping for b), but I never was a great test-taker!

So firstly, Id like to discuss the difficulty in creating a blog name!  Awful to say, but people judge a book by it's cover (and name!)  I need something catchy with a dash of cheesy-ness.

Attempted (and failed) blog names:
Faithfully (taken)
Russellmania (internal debate realized that was SUPER cheezy)... but still tempting
Sunglasses at Night (didnt think people would get it)
Are We There Yet? (taken)
Sweet Procrastination (taken... imagine that!)

... and so we ended up with Many Faithful Journeys.  I feel like it covers most bases I wanted to cover with a title.  I mean, who doesnt love Journey, let alone their prom-classic?  It was, after all, my wedding song! 

I. Must. Post. Youtube. Video!

 You could, of course, interpret Journeys as 'Lifes Journeys,' which is likely the more honest (and realistic) understanding.  Id also describe myself as a faithful, devoted, committed person/wife/daughter/friend who is pretty (sometimes, painfully) truthful.  Definition of faithful?  Occording to Webster, you could slap my picture on that one.

So, here it is.  Many Faithful Jouneys.

With Who: Me, of course!  And W. (not the ex-pres, but my husband!  Ive noticed the blogging trend of husbands as letters only.  I think boys are scared of blogs... probably for good reason.  Maybe I should reconsider this thing after all.) :)  And along with W are the (rescued) pugs, Dutchess and Dorothy.

Whats there to talk about? Im thinking Ill make this sucker a daily life, newleywed-ish?, newly-nesting, cooking, DIY blog.  Hm.  Basically, a Seinfeld show... a blog about nothing! (but still entertaining... I mean, who didnt like Seinfeld?!)

Where? Well, W and I live in Little Rock, AR, but we travel all over the US visiting family (and going who-knows-where on vacations), so who knows where Ill post from.  Likely home... in my recliner.  Or the back porch. With a cup of coffee.  Who am I kidding?
When? Im going to see if I can post pretty regularly.  A couple of times a week?  Lets not commit too early, kids.
Why? I dont know.  I guess I dont have anything better to do!

So, here goes everybody!  Lets see how this goes!  Please follow me... I need blog friends! (or is that too desperate?)  :)  And PLEASE let me know of somewhere fun to make/steal/borrow blog layouts.  This blog needs a lift!

-Elizabeth

(Ill leave you with a photo of my lovely ladies!)

Location: The Living Room

When: 2010 - Duck Season

Feeling: Loved