♪ I Feel Pretty! ♪

I have been sick. Cold, cough, the blahs. Thanks, kiddos!

So today, I decided to pamper myself a little. I have seen a lot of pins for scrubs and whatnot, so I decided today would be the day to try one.

Let me say that pampering myself is a lot of work! There's the measuring, the mixing, the scrubbing the tub before I can get in it...Was it worth it? Yes, yes it was. I feel all shiny and new.

I decided I was going to try the Super Silky Summer Legs scrub. Yeah, it's almost fall...every where else. We don't have fall in the desert. It's always summer here. I decided to try this based on a very mathematical and scientific formula. Ha! No, I decided to use this one because I had all the ingredients on hand. And I needed to shave anyway.

I've also been wanting to try a hair mask. My hair is kind of needing some help from some over-processing. You know, flat irons and hair dryers and hair dye kind of mess with your head a bit. So, again, using my super important mathematical and scientific formula, I chose Simple Do It Yourself Hair Mask.

Now, y'all should know I am a bit of a klutz and I don't always think things all the way through enough. Some stuff just never occurs to me. So, point, laugh, snicker all you want. Or, if you're like me, you'll thank me for telling you what I went through today.

Since the hair mask was equal parts honey and olive oil wrapped in plastic wrap for 30 minutes on my head, I decided to start with that and let it "mask" my hair while I did the scrub.

 The picture quality sucks because I used my camera phone. Not that I'm any kind of photographer with any other kind of camera.

Anyway, I used 1/2 cup honey and olive oil and mixed together. Right before I put it on my hair I thought "I'm fixin' to put honey in my hair. Honey is sticky. What the mess am I doin'?!" But I did it anyway. I used the spatula to spread it over my hair while I stood over the sink. Then I wrapped the plastic wrap stuff around my head. Re-wrapped it. And re-wrapped it again. I couldn't get it to stay on there.

"Beauty School Dropout" started going through my head for some reason...

Y'all should know, plastic wrap and I are arch enemies.

makes me laugh every time! 

Okay, anyway. So, I get my hair all masked and wrapped and get started on my Silky Summery Legs scrub. I followed the instructions to the letter. Sugar, olive oil, lemon juice. Razors. Scrubbing my legs felt uh-may-zing! I rinsed and shaved (no shaving cream - this may be obvious to some people, but for me, it made me ponder for a minute "do I really shave without shaving cream or my trusty Intuition razor?"). Duh. The olive oil makes your skin so super soft! Then I scrubbed again, per instructions. Now.....

This is when my hair mask started to slide down my forehead and into my eyes. That stuff burns. I had olive oil and sugar all over my hands, so I couldn't exactly use them to splash water in my eyes. Oh, by the way, your tub will be REALLY REALLY REALLY slippery at this point, so be careful. Like, super careful. Don't get up quickly...or slip....or fall...or anything like that, okay? I rinsed my eyes, but my hair mask was still sliding down into my eyes. So I finally wrapped my towel around my head to keep the plastic wrap in place and keep the dang stuff from getting in my eyes while I finished scrubbing my legs. 

My legs, which are now super shiny and soft. I made my neighbor feel them. She was all "oooo." I made my husband feel them and he was all "Uh, okay...what?" Whatever. 

As for rinsing the hair mask out. It took me at least two shampoos to get it all out. But I have really thick hair. My hair now feels super soft and silky. Like my legs (but my legs aren't hairy!)

So yay! My eyes still burn a little, but I feel all shiny and new. It wasn't as relaxing as I'd hoped, but oh well. Next time, I won't do the mask at the same time.

The Thousand Year Storm and Sweet and Sour Chicken

A friend of mine kept telling me about a recipe she pinned on Pinterest and how she tried it out and she and her family loved it. I had pinned the same recipe and back on July 31st, I decided to give it a try. I remember it was July 31st because of the madness that ensued that day. 

Let me first say that I must have been craving sweet and sour chicken something fierce that day because I hate cooking chicken. I mean, I really, really hate it. It's gross to handle and I hate slicing into it when I have to cut it up into bite-size pieces. Actually, I hate cooking any meat. I should cook more vegetarian meals, but I'm afraid the Hubs would have a cow and die. 

What was I saying? Oh yeah. Sweet and Sour Chicken. Here is the original recipe. Now, a couple of things. I did not have chicken breasts. I only had boneless skinless thighs. But chicken is chicken right? (seriously, chicken thighs suck for this! They tasted fine, though.)

So, I started to cut up the chicken. I had all my ingredients lined up. 

My music playlist was playing in the background. I'm pretty sure I was wearing my apron (this recipe involves cornstarch which is white and powdery and like all things that involve cooking, would have ended up all over my clothes). 

I started dipping the chicken in the cornstarch and eggs, as the recipe says to do. I think "huh. This is kind of more involved than I thought it would be. Oh, look, rain clouds. It won't rain, though. This is the desert. It never rains. Oh. Big fat raindrops are falling.....and it's over. Normal Monsoon!"  

La la la la......Then the Hubs pulls into the garage (he rides a motorcycle everywhere - even to the store when I ask him to go for a few things). And the sky opens up and it starts raining. Really raining for what seems like the first time all Monsoon season.

rain is kind of a big deal here.

I did stop dipping and dunking chicken long enough to go look at the rain. Then I'm dipping and dunking when the Hubs comes in and tells me the water isn't going anywhere, it's just making a little river on our street. Uh, okay. Dip, dunk. Dip. Dunk. I'm seriously beginning to hate this recipe. Cornstarch and egg was sticking all over my hands. I'm thinking "am I even doing this right?!" 

"Hey, babe!" The Hubs doesn't know my real name. At least, this is what I truly believe after almost 10 years of marriage and rarely hearing him call me anything but "babe." Anyway. "Hey, babe! Seriously, there's a small river here." So, I had to just go see, right?! I washed my hands first, by the way. 

what!

Uh....my daughter is on her way home from a friend's house. I ended up having to wade out in thigh-high water to go get her. But whatever. 

is this how it's supposed to look?

I kept expecting the rain to stop any second. After all, it rains really hard and stops after 5 minutes here. But the rain kept coming down and coming down. A couple of neighbors needed help. And I kind of gave up on the chicken. We browned it, like the recipe said and then put it in the casserole and covered it and put it in the fridge for "later." But, by the time we got back inside after the flood waters receded, it was way too late to go baking something for an hour. So we ate something else. I did throw the chicken in the oven the next night for dinner. I was worried it'd be soggy and gross from sitting in the fridge overnight. But you know what? It wasn't! It turned out very yummy. Except, I'll use chicken breast next time. 

finished product.

Some more pictures from what the weather people say was a 1000 year storm. 

my street after the rains finally stopped.

My street the next day.

Not a very good picture, but this is the willow that fell in our backyard. :( 

It was a ca-razy day! Over all, I thought the sweet and sour chicken turned out really good. And I think I accidentally discovered that it can be partially made ahead of time and cooked the next day. I might have to rename it to "Madness Chicken" or something....

So it Begins....

Something the Hubs hears a lot.

I am, like a lot of people I know, completely addicted to Pinterest. It started last year when my sister-in-law said, "Have you heard of this website?" She sent me an invite and the Hubs became a Pinterest widower (and I guess my kids kind of became Pinterest orphans).

Anyway, Pinterest is slowly turning me into the Domestic Goddess I always wanted to be. Oh, who am I kidding? I was a Goddess before Pinterest. I did use to hate cooking though. I mean, I hated it. Not so much now. I love finding recipes on Pinterest and trying them out and pushing a plate across the table to the Hubs or the kids and seeing how much they enjoy what I've cooked. And I love all the ideas on homemade remedies and organization (although I do tend to pin more about organizing than I actually organize). The crafts are daunting sometimes because I am not a crafty person. Seriously, I'm a hot mess when it comes to crafts. But a couple of the things I've attempted have turned out okay...and I really would like to try more.

I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. Sometimes, more than I should. And then one day, I was talking to the Hubs about how funny one of my Pin attempts turned out. And the idea was born to start a blog about my Pinterest attempts, fails, successes and inspirations. My failed attempt brought forth the saying in my home "well, Pins happen" and here we are. I like the idea of having a place to put my attempts so I can, at least, keep up with what I've tried and how it worked out (or didn't).

Well......here we go.....