goshery

Buster Bar Dessert.

Years ago my mom gave me a recipe for Buster Bar Dessert.  If you like the Peanut Buster Parfait at Dairy Queen you will love this dessert.  The photo shown above is the finished dessert.  I should warn you that the photos in this post are not great.

I should also warn you that this dessert is putzy and takes quite a while since you need to keep pausing between steps, but it's worth the effort if you have time.  Ok, here are the ingredients.

1 lb. package Oreo cookies

½ cup butter

½ gallon vanilla ice cream

 SAUCE

2 cups powdered sugar

2/3 cup chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-1/2 cups Spanish peanuts

1-1/2 cups evaporated milk

½ cup butter

Crush Oreo cookies (I used a food processor) and mix with butter.  Pat into a 9X13 pan and refrigerate for one hour.  Spoon ice cream over crust and pack well.  Freeze.

Mix sugar, evaporated milk, chips and butter in saucepan.  Boil for 8 minutes, stirring often.  Remove from heat.  Add vanilla and cool.

Sprinkle peanuts on ice cream.

Pour cooled sauce on top of ice cream.

Keep frozen until you are ready to serve.  Enjoy!

around here.

Here's a look at what's been going on around here for the past few days.

Spending time outdoors going for walks with friends.  Tonight our four mile route took us past this lake.  Here in Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, we say "the lake was just like glass".  And tonight that was very true. 

Mowing the lawn nonstop.  I bought this new tank top for the summer because it's super light weight and allows for maximum sun exposure.  Plus, have you ever noticed that shoulder blades don't have any fat?  Check plus. Note: Three hours of mowing lawn didn't do much for my hair. 

Spending time with these sweet boys and having a blast.  I babysat them on Saturday; it was a rainy day so we didn't get to play outside but we managed to have lots of fun with Legos and Angry Birds.  We also listened to a lot of music played once we realized we could tell Siri (on the iPhone) to "play music".  Moves like Jagger seemed to be a favorite.

Spending time admiring my freshly mowed lawn.  This is a look at the back yard through the window.

Getting ready for graduation; I know lots of seniors that are graduating this year.  Graduation cards have been made, signed, filled with cash and handed out.

Celebrating Memorial Day by attending a local ceremony with my step-dad, a Vietnam Veteran.

Summer is off to a busy start and the month of June is jam packed with lots of fun plans.  We start out the month with a visit from my stepsister this weekend.  I can't wait.

more digi layouts

Today I'll share the additional three digital layouts I completed for JessicaSprague.com in May.  As mentioned, as a Creative Team member I create and share four layouts each month on.

I created this layout using products from Nancy Rowe Janitz.  To create this layout I used photo masking, which means that I created spaces for photos and then added the photos in (see the top three photos).  I could have just free hand sized the three photos, but one of the advantages of digital scrapbooking is that you can create a "mask" for a photo and then easily copy it so that all of the photos you add in those masks are the same size.

This layout also features the designs of Nancy Rowe Janitz.  On of the fun things I used for this layout is the house element, which is actually a digital stamp.  You can choose your "ink" color and then place your curser where you want the element and click your mouse to "stamp" the item.  Unlike rubber stamps used in traditional scrapbooking with a digital stamp you can change the size of the stamp and also move it around after you've created the stamp.

This layout features products by Creativity for Crystal.  The layout was made using a template, which is another benefit to digital scrapbooking.  Traditional scrapbooking offers sketches, which are layout ideas in the form of a sketch, kind of like a house plan.  They are timesavers if you are working on a layout and can't decide what you want it to look like.  Templates are the digital version of a sketch.  The basic layout shown above was already created for me, and I could just add my photos and any embellishments that I wanted.  See the half circle title at the top?  That was already part of the template, so to customize it I could simply change the text.  Templates are perfect for scrappers that are new to digital scrapbooking and I LOVE them!

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Just a reminder that you still have a few days left to take advantage of a great offer from Persnickety Prints.  You can receive 10% off your order by simply entering the code goshery when you place your order.  This offer is good until May 31, 2012.

I'm excited to announce that I am now a member of the Creative Team for Jessica Sprague!

If you aren't familiar with Jessica Sprague she is an amazing teacher of digital scrapbooking.  Her site offers classes in digital scrapbooking that are very easy to understand; I've taken a number of her classes and have learned so much.  You can also purchase digital scrapbooking items - paper, templates, elements, etc. - on the site.

I've started a new blog series called DigiScrap.  Each month I'll be creating four digital pages using products available at JessicaSprague.com.  I'll be sharing the pages here which will give you an opportunity to see the products available on the site and you'll also get a glimpse of my digi skills.  My hope is that over the course of the next year my skills will improve by leaps and bounds!

Here is one of the pages I completed in May.

For this page I was able to use a brand new digi set by Echo Park.  The set is called "Summertime" and will be available for purchase on May 21st at JessicaSprague.com.  There are 5 different papers in the set (I used three on this layout) and a whole bunch of elements (like the sand castle on my layout).  This was a fun set to work with - I love the bright, fun colors.

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I hope that you enjoy this new series on my blog.  If you have any questions about the products I used or digi scrapbooking in general please leave them in the comments.  I'll do my best to provide you with answers!

math.

I am really bad at math.  When I tell people that they often say that I'm probably not that bad at math but instead I just lack confidence in my ability to do math.  No.  I'm really bad at math.

I was recently visited a website that teaches all types of math in an attempt to improve my skills.  I think that if I understood the basic principles it would be helpful so I did a quick search and found a site that has lessons and practice problems.  I've always had trouble with word problems so I was in that section of the site when I came across this problem:

Example:

Margret sold 1392 meatballs on Friday. She sold 1940 more meatballs on Saturday than on Friday. How many meatballs did she sell on Saturday?

I read the problem and looked at the chart and then I wondered why she sold so many more meatballs on Saturday.  Was she in the same location both days?  Maybe she was at a flea market and it rained on Friday but Saturday was a nice, sunny day with a lot more traffic and that's why she sold so many more meatballs.  Or maybe Friday was super hot and people didn't want hot food but then Saturday was much cooler and suddenly meatballs sold really well.

And that, my friends, is why I struggle with word problems.  Figuring out the answer wasn't even something I attempted.  Instead I immediately tried to figure out why imaginary people bought or didn't buy imaginary meatballs.  Maybe math isn't my problem.

In case you are curious (or really bad at math) here's the answer:

Solution:

1392 + 1940 = 3332

She sold 3332 meatballs on Saturday.

I'm confident I could have solved it if only I had tried.

yard work.

I recently completed a little project in my yard; specifically at one end of my house.  The picture shown above is a sage plant and some decor that's been there for a few years.  It's not a part of the yard that I use a lot but it's definitely a high traffic area.  I live on a busy road and running along the road, very close to my house, is a walking path.  Between the road and the path lots of people travel past my house and I was embarrassed that this is what they saw as they went by.

Here's a look at the road and path that I took as I was standing right by my house.  As you can see, the path is very close to my house.

The first thing I did when I started the project was pull weeds and then pick pine cones and pine needles out of the rocks.  That took a while.  The next thing I did was remove the old bird house from the pole.  It was attached with two screws and it was very easy to remove.

Next I drilled two holes in the back of a new bird house that I bought.  I learned something new about my drill during this project.  The only thing I've drilled into before was sheetrock but the little door on this birdhouse was made of metal, or at least had a metal coating over wood.  When I tried to drill through it nothing happened, so I reviewed my set of drill bits and realized that there was a whole other section for drilling through that type of material.  Once I changed the drill bit the holes were very easy to drill.

Once I had the holes drilled I used the screws from the old bird house to attach the new bird house to the pole.  This whole project went much more smoothly than anticipated!

Here's a look at the bird house once I had attached it to the pole and placed it where I wanted it at the end of the house.

And here's a look at the completed project.  I would like the bird house a little lower but I couldn't get the pole any deeper into the ground.  I'll keep working on that, or maybe I can get someone with a little more muscle to do it for me.  It's not radically different than before but a little weeding and a few new items just helped to freshen it up.

I have to admit I'm pretty happy to have this new man in my life!  He's so cute!

Happy Mother's Day!

 I'm lucky to be called MOM by a sweet young lady.  It all started 23 years ago - this picture was taken not long before she was born.  She arrived three weeks early but clearly I was more than ready.  Don't you love the pearls?

This Mother's Day I thought I'd share a little bit about the daughter that has made being a MOM so awesome. She was stinkin' cute right from the start.  This photo was taken when she was about 5 months old.

She is incredibily talented.  When she was little she loved performing this little trick with her dad.

She has always been creative too.  When she was younger she loved dressing up in all sorts of costumes, even if it was just for breakfast.

She is an animal lover and she especially loves dogs.  In fact, her very first word was PUPPY.

We have always managed to have fun together, even when we drove across the country in a U-Haul moving her home after she graduated from college.

Do doubt about it, she has brought GREAT JOY into my life.  I love being her MOM!

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

road trip.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a one day conference on Leadership in Granite Falls, Minnesota.  That's about two hours from my house and since the conference center was part of a casino and hotel facility I decided to drive down the night before and stay at the hotel rather than getting up early the day of the conference and making the drive.  I didn't spend any time in the casino; instead I had dinner and then spent the evening in my hotel room finishing a book I started during my vacation in Mexico (Sarah's Key).

I drove through the town of Willmar which is where my parents grew up and my grandparents lived when I was younger.  One of my grandfathers, Papa Olaf, lived on Trott Avenue so I stopped and took a picture of the street sign and posted it to Facebook with a note to my cousins.  Love technology.

It was hard not to notice the beautiful flowering pink tree in the background.  Spring is such a pretty time of year.  It was a beautiful drive and I enjoyed taking in the sights along the way.  Another sign of spring - I saw lots of tractors in the fields.

Granite Falls is in a valley and there's a lookout stop on the top of the hill before you get into town.  My Aunt (my mom's sister) spent many years in Granite Falls and now lives in Colorado.  Since my mom is going to visit her later this month I decided to stop and take a picture of the valley so that my mom can show it to my Aunt.

The sky that evening was beautiful and I stood and admired the valley and the sky for a while.  That's the beauty of road trips; a great chance to slow down and enjoy the scenery.

National Scrapbook Day.

I'm busy participating in National Scrapbook Day!  I've been participating in challenges online with both BigPictureClasses and Studio Calico.  It's been really fun!  Here's one of the cards I made for a challenge to use graphic shapes & designs.  I used chevron paper and lots of circles!

Hope your Saturday has been as fun as mine!

boring.

If there's one thing I cannot do it is watch commercials on tv.  I am a definite "flipper" when I'm watching tv, always having a back-up show identified so that I can hit the recall button to flip between shows in order to avoid commercials.  I also take advantage of my DVR and often pause a show when it starts, leave the room for half an hour or more and then come back and start watching the show, fast forwarding through commercials.

If I do end up watching a live show I get very bored during commercials and end up taking photos my iPhone for something to do.  Here's a sampling of photos taken earlier this week during commercials while watching Dancing with the Stars.

Lamp base. Up close and personal.

Owl.  Black & White.

Remote.  Well used buttons.

Chairs.  Pretty and comfortable.

Lamp.  Front and center.

Favorite photo.  Cousins.

So there's a little tour of some of the details in my living room and now you know what it's like to watch tv with me.  I think I should take up knitting to keep me entertained, that would be more productive.