Jalapeno Pinwheel Poppers

I found this awesome recipe on Pinterest [yeah, I'm sure you've never heard that before]. This recipe, which I will from here out refer to as Jalepeno Pinwheel Poppers, is great for many reasons. It's quick and easy. The ingredients can be bought well in advance and you don't have to worry about them going bad. They can be made [somewhat] in advance and cooked [somewhat] later.

Jalapeno Pinwheel Poppers, professional picture from recipe source

It takes about 15 minutes to get everything thrown together, and about 13 minutes cooking time. I've ever so slightly altered the original recipe to make it better.

Kitchen Drawers - Vertical Silverware Tray

When we bought our house, I knew that the kitchen would be the one thing that I hated most (after we had our bathroom renovated). I tried my best to quickly make it tolerable with a little amount of money. I've hated the cabinet setup since day one. Overall, there isn't much cabinet space, and what's there is laid out horribly! There are two small drawers the depth of silverware/junk drawers, and two deep drawers that have no good purpose (awful planning!).

Horrible layout.

When we moved in, I hurriedly found spots for things, just trying to get the boxes unpacked. I had to buy a new silverware tray because the drawers aren't of a typical width.

Warmer & Scent of the Month - February

Every month Scentsy releases a Scent and Warmer of the month, each of which are discounted 10% during that month. As an Independent Consultant, I have access to the warmer and scent of the month about half-a-month earlier than customers can order them. The information for the special is released early in the the preceding month, so I learned about the February special at the beginning of January.

February is a special month for Scentsy, a new line, "ScenTrend," is being released. ScenTrend is a Scentsy wax bar featuring an annually selected fragrance note that has been expertly deemed to be an up-and-coming scent. The bar is not meant to be melted alone, but to act as an enhancing scent to another Scentsy bar (bars that have been determined to mix best have a special notation). Because of this new release, my Warmer of the Month package included a sample bar of the ScentTrend, in addition to the warmer of the month and bars and room spray of the scent of the month.

February: Warmer of the Month, Room Spray, ScentTrend, Scent of the Month

The February warmer is Flutterby, a premium full-sized warmer. It has a nice, neutral green color with a hint of crackle finish. Butterflies are stamped in to the warmer and carved out, letting some of the light seep through.

Flutterby, Full-Sized Warmer

February's scent of the month is Pixie, "a mischievous moonscape of pink pepper, mandarin, and heliotrope, deepened by exotic teakwood and vanilla oak." I thought this sounded promising, definitely worth a shot. When it came in and I popped one open, I was a little disappointed. I had already heard people raving about it online, so I guess my hopes were a little high. It was a little too fragrant for me, which is something a lot of people specifically look for (you'll continue to notice the scent for a longer time period than something that is more subtle). There is a strong floral smell, reminding me of a perfume my mom wore to church every Sunday when I was a small kid. There is a nice, sweet smell that is a little less prominent, and even a little bit of a fabric softener whiff in there. It's not bad, but it is definitely strong.

Pixie, Pink Pepper atop the Flutterby warmer

The ScentTrend of 2012 is Pink Pepper. This scent is described as,"both sweet and spicy, with a bit of floral mixed in." They say it mixes great with gourmand and floral fragrances, adding depth and character. While it can be combined with any of your favorite bars, it is highly recommended to pair it with Imperial City, Amber Road, Paradise Punch, Love Story, Hendrix, and Pixie (the February SOTM). While they say it's not like black pepper that you find in pepper grinders and in kitchens, you can definitely smell a very similar peppery note. The bar in itself isn't strong, it's not supposed to be; but it will add an interesting touch to another fragrance. If you concentrate, you can pick up a slight floral hint within the ScentTrend bar.

As I didn't particularly care for Pixie right off the bat, I was shocked that when I held Pixie and Pink Pepper together it had a much more pleasant smell, something that I thought I would really like in a warmer!

So, I broke off a portion of the Pixie brick which comes with the WOTM package and threw it in the warmer in my bathroom. I haven't added any Pink Pepper yet, I wanted to give Pixie a chance on its own first. It was really strong! From the small amount I put in the bathroom, you could smell it in the bathroom, three bedrooms on that end of the house, and into the kitchen. You can even smell it, although not as strongly, into the living room! If you're looking for a bar that gives you a ton of bang for your buck, this is it!! I still haven't added the Pink Pepper, but it's on my to-do list.

Homemade Dog Treats

My family really loves dogs. I mean, really, really loves dogs. So much so that my mom decided they deserved homemade treats just like the rest of us! 

Homemade with Love!

 Thanks to Pinterest and my mom's philosophy that anything could and should be homemade, we decided to try our hand at homemade dog treats. A little google search lead us to countless options, but luckily one of the first few looked promising, requiring a lot of stuff you usually have on hand! 

There are a lot of pups in my family. If my sister and I are both at our parents' house, there will be at least 5 dogs, possibly more depending on if any other family is in town or around. Some holidays we have 10 or 11 running around. Anyway, it was a good gamble on my mom's part to double the recipe. Represented here is the original recipe (not doubled).

Dinner - Wino Chicken

Cooking and I have a love/hate relationship. I love cooking when it works out, hate it when it doesn't. I'd say that, overall, my cooking turns out good about 50% of the time. Lately, though, I've been doing pretty well... knock on wood! I did get a new oven, I think this is really helping!

I watch a good amount of Food Network, but somehow seem to miss the actual cooking shows designed to help people like me, average cookers. I catch a lot of Iron Chef and Food Network Challenges, which helps me ad lib cook, but doesn't really give me a lot of recipes to use at home. Luckily, FoodNetwork.com has been awesome at helping me with this.

One day I stumbled upon an awesome recipe by Paula Deen. The official recipe title is "Lady and Sons' Chicken in Wine Sauce," which is a mouthful. I've renamed it Wino Chicken. Below is the recipe, slightly altered to fit my taste.

Distressed Skin

Generally, I have extremely sensitive skin. Add to that a harsh, windy winter and my skin becomes so irritated it hurts- really bad, all day. This applies to my entire body, but it recently became a serious problem with my face.

About 2 years ago Aveda was recommended to me. I tried a few of their products, found some of them worthwhile, but was allergic to some, as well. I had been using Clinique's dramatically different moisturizing lotion my entire life (okay, preteen years on), but around this time found that it really wasn't moisturizing my skin well enough.

Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion

 
On the Aveda kick, I decided to try out their Botanical Kinetics skin line. I bought the liter bottles of their cleanser and moisturizer because it was a better deal in the long run (I'm such a bargain hound).

Aveda Botanical Kinetics Moisturizer

At first, the Aveda cleanser and moisturizer were okay. It should have been a sign that my sister had to quit using them nearly immediately, as it irritated her skin. After about a year I decided I didn't really like it that much, but it was an expensive set and I'd just finish out the bottles and then find something better. Recently my husband picked up a Neutrogena face wash and set it out for himself. Well, I began using it, too, and realized, Aveda vs. Neutrogena... Neutrogena won.

Handy with a sewing machine

So, I know how to sew. Admittedly, I am not the best seamstress ever. But, I know enough to be handy. This is incredibly important because I'm pretty short; nearly every pair of pants I posses have been hemmed (not always by me).

So, I purchased a new pair of scrubs the other day. They only had medium scrub bottoms, and I usually take a small, but I thought, "why not, they're scrub bottoms." It's not like they're supposed to be super fitted anyway. I knew I would have to hem them, no big surprise there.

With my mother's help, we got a hem length figured out. Note to all: do not attempt to figure out how much to take off by yourself, bending over to pin the pants will always distort the length. Anyway, the pants were also much looser through the thighs than they appeared in the store, so my mom suggested taking that in a little, too.

This is the promotional photo for the bottoms- note the slit at the ankle.

Bring Back My Bar! An Independent Consultant review

Scentsy is running a Bring Back My Bar promotion, offering a chance to purchase 20 different discontinued bars, back by popular demand, thanks to over 5 million votes from devoted fans! These bars are back for the month of January only. As usual, each bar is $5, or you can buy 3 for $16, or 6 for $25.

Independent Consultants were offered the chance to purchase all 20 in December. I did not take advantage of this, and now I wish I would have! But, 8 different scents were just delivered (7 were mine, 1 was my sisters) and I was super excited to crack them open!

Bring Back My Bar!