Camping

Here are some pics from my recent camping trip at Carlyle lake...

Mason making this crazy face that he always does...

 Steven cleans...everyone else watches...

 Playing paparazzi with Steven and Tabby on the golf carts

 The coolest camper porch ever...two tiered porch that connects to a gazebo...

 Driving the golf cart through the woods...or jungle.

 Mady swimming

 Mason



Random pics

This first one is my long-awaited birthday present from my BFF Sara. We fought over this ring which we found in an antique shop in Lancaster Pennsylvania like 3 years ago. She finally decided that she didn't want it and gave it to me this year!

 More pics of the God forsaken planting process during the drought...this is the tomato plant post-thinning and the bucket is supposed to have daisies in it...now it only houses dirt.

 Starting to sprout.

 Here is the final product of one of the paintings I did for my mom's bathroom...abstract beach view.

 Here's the book I read in the beginning of June. It's one of many TIP books from SAMSHA...which is an organization for treating people who have a mental illness and a substance abuse problem. You can see I flagged just about every page with good treatment techniques. One day I want an office with shelves with all of the TIP books flagged!

 And here is the dying (now dead) tomato plant after it was transplanted to my mom's house...she kills everything I give her.



Chocolate Whoopie Pies and Frozen Hot Chocolate

First up are the whoopie pies...kinda like Oreo Cakesters.

Sifting all the dry ingredients....

 Mixing up batter...

 Ready to go...

 The directions said to put them on wax paper, but I don't know why. It really didn't make a difference.

 All the cookie halves ready to be filled...

 Making the marshmellow creme....

 All filled.

 Took them all to work and everyone loved them. They all want me to make them again already.

I've had this recipe in my recipe box for awhile, so I don't know where I got it from. But, butter was missing from the ingredients, so when it said to add the butter I had to get on allrecipes.com to figure out how much would be right. I guessed the right amount because they turned out really good.

 Next is the frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity. If you've ever seen the movie Serendipity, they go to a famous coffee/lunch spot Serendiptiy 3 in New York. They have gigantic glasses of frozen hot chocolate you can get there and I've been craving it ever since.

First heat up some sugar, butter and a pack of hot cocoa mix.

You're supposed to do this over a double boiler, but it's not necessary.

 Add in semi sweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips and let everything melt.

 Also add half a can of evaporated milk

 And it will eventually all smooth out.

 Let that cool down and fill your blender with ice and the rest of the evaporated milk

 Then blend everything up.

 This recipe was from Pinterest and was delicious. It kinda tastes like pudding right after you make it, even though there's no pudding in it. It makes a whole pitcher and will freeze solid, so I suggest having a party so it can all be drunk at once.

Random Things

Here are a few random pictures with various topics...

First is a pink fire truck at the Susan G. Komen walk...very exciting.

 My flowers starting to grow...pretty sure these ones are now dead thanks to drought and birds.

 These ones are still kickin' though...

 Cherry tomato plant...I believe this was after I transplanted some of it...to be seen later.

 Hydrangeas I cut from the bushes at my mom's house.

 Painting #2 in progress...it's an abstract beach scene in case you were curious.

 And this is the next book I finished in June. Hard to get through because there are soo many characters and it's hard to keep all the names straight. But, one thing I noticed while reading was...hmmm this story sounds familiar.... Turns out that Clueless is based on Emma...some of the same character names and some characters were combined to form the ones in the movie.

 And here is the big pile o' books that I still need to read...plus I added some more after this pic was taken...



Pasta Pie and Random things

This is a recipe that I believe I got from Pinterest. First you brown some beef...

 Cook some rigatoni...

 Mix tomato sauce into the beef....

 Cover the rigatoni with olive oil and Parmesan...

 You're supposed to make this in a springform pan and carefully stand each noodle on end...but I was too lazy for all of that...so I just dumped the rigatoni in the dish and covered with the sauce mixture.

 Cover with some cheese and bake. This would have been better if I had actually followed the directions, then the sauce would have gone all the way through the dish...but this way it was mostly on top. But it was still pretty good either way.

 Random picture of the tuxedo cupcake from my birthday.

 Some more hidden transformations pictures in progress...

 And starting a new one...

 And here is a shot of all of the books I read in March-May. I have literally a ton of books to read stacked on my nighstand and will start posting them all on here when I finish them. I'm making sure to read every day and am getting through the books a lot faster.

Don't Panic came from the library book sale and I didn't so much read it myself, but taught it in group for a series on anxiety disorders.

Classic Mythology was leftover from my mythology class from Lewis & Clark, which I loved so much I decided to read all the way through all the myths in this huge book.

Deviant Behavior was also from the library book sale and is mostly full of lots of statistics about crime and personality disorders.

Greece was from a thrift shop down the street from our group home and is mostly an outdated picture book with no author named and lots of misspellings...

The Irish American Family Album was from the library book sale and gives first-hand accounts of the history of Ireland and immigration, which I knew nothing about before reading it.

Many more books to come!