Easy, Amazing Strawberry Shortcake

I do not claim or desire to be a food blogger but this strawberry shortcake is so good I must share...

The recipe is so simple. Combine dry ingredients, cut in butter, stir in milk, pat in pan, bake...

And I like to hull my strawberries with a paring knife, then slice them so that the slices come out heart shaped...

The shortcake is light and sweet and somewhere between a cake and a scone. You must try it. Now.

Nice Weekend

Ty and my brother had some wheelin' and dirt bike ridin' to do this weekend, so my sister-in-law and I spent Saturday hanging out with my mom, while the boys drove on to their destination a couple hours further east.

We had a good time. We found a little bird on the porch, that had apparently hit the window and been knocked silly. He let my sister-in-law Brie walk up to him and pick him right up and pet him. He even perched on her hand while she walked around. Of course I am snapping pictures like mad and getting excited cause they are so cute. Eventually, he flew away to the edge of the yard and perched on some small pines.

Of course, I whip out the camera and go to show Brie the great shots I captured... or would have captured, if I had a memory card in the camera!!!!!!!! O. M. G. Am I the only one this has happened to? And I am doing the photography for a wedding this weekend! Good thing I already thought of this and bought three extra memory cards and stashed them in my camera bag.

Anyway, we chased down the bird and I climbed the tree and got him down to Brie so we could at least prove to the men that we weren't lying...

We also got a kick out of these birds...

They were a type of gross beak and were wild maniacs. I saw one and thought it was a pet that got loose, then they came in by the dozens.

Then there were the eight-- yes, eight hummingbirds fighting over the feeder...

Of course they wouldn't all pose at one time. They were wildly dive bombing us. My mom has counted ten at one time before in previous years. There were a couple at a time until we went in the hot tub that evening and just before dark, they all seemed to show up at once for one last feeding.

The cousins got some hang time, watching many astonishing TV programs we don't have on limited cable at home...

Look at that baby's eyes! What a goofy girl!

It was a great weekend, but it's good to be home!

We've Adopted!

Nothing says spring like new baby chicks! I couldn't help myself - I got the opportunity to use a little chicken house (more on that in a later post), so I had to go and adopt these three sweeties...

And of course this little sweetie had to hold them.

Mark was pretty gentle, but I did feel a little bit like we might have an Of Mice and Men situation on our hands.

Susie liked them quite a bit, when we could get her to look at them...

Even Daddy Ty loves baby chicks...

Before I introduce you to each of our new babies, I have to tell you two things. One; they are all hens. Females. Girls. And two; Mark named them.

First we have the Silver Laced Wyandotte named Chad, after supercross racer, Chad Reed.

The Wyandotte, when mature, is one of my favorite chicken colors. Chad is the oldest, and always the ringleader. Though she is the first to freak out when we come near, she is also the first to simmer down and get friendly with us, approaching us or even perching on us.

Then there's Mark's favorite pick, Travis, a Buff Orpington named after freestyle motocross star, Travis Pastrana...

She is always the one Mark wants to hold, and was named Travis because Travis rides a yellow Suzuki and she, herself is yellow, Mark says. She is a sweet little gal, and the middle child of the three. Whatever happens, she just goes with the flow.

She will grow up to be a plump, soft, full-figured gal (you know what I mean if you clicked that link). These are my favorite breed. They grow up friendly with a hint of an attitude.

Then we have the baby of the three, Angel.

Now there is no motocross star named Angel, however, there is a story behind this name. After the first two were named, I realized and stated to Mark, "You know what, these chicks are girls... maybe we should give them girl names." Mark said, "No." So I suggested, "What about a girl dirt bike rider, like Joleen?" Joleen rides with Travis, so I thought he'd go for that. But Mark replied, "No. How 'bout we name her 'Send Me an Angel'?" OMG. Send Me an Angel is the 80's song that plays during a segment of the dirt bike video Thrilbillies - Double Wide, when the girl dirt bike riders are introduced. Mark sings along. That is really kind of sick, but I give up. "Okay, Angel it is!" By the way, to defend myself here, Travis Pastrana's videos are among very few dirt bike videos that are clean. We are strict about that and only watch Pastrana or dirt bike documentaries about specific races or riders.

Anyway, Angel is an Ameraucana, which will lay green eggs!

When she wakes up, I will tell her to hurry up and grow big and strong and make me some green eggs so I can make green eggs and ham! But she is usually sleeping, since she is a little baby, and always disappears under the other chickens to get toasty warm...

And then I dig her out and make her visit with me because she is so deliciously fuzzy and cute!

And then I put her down and 30 seconds later her narcolepsy makes her do this...

Silly, sleepy chicks. Well even if you live the subs with a small yard, I would recommend chickens as pets. Chicks usually run from $2 - $3, depending on breed. To get started, all you need is a $15 heat lamp and bulb, a large container to keep them in for a few weeks (even a large box would work), a $10 bag of feed and $2 feed and water tins that screw onto standard canning jars...

There are a couple resources I recommend for raising chickens. The book Animal Housing is great. It has several chicken housing plans, from large walk-in chicken houses with doors and windows, to very small city-type housing. And the book Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens is a great reference for their health and well-being. Both are available through Sno-Isle Libraries.

After Chad got up to perch on Mark's leg, Travis decided to check things out...

Angel was getting cold in the grass all by her lonesome, so she had to jump up and get under Travis...

Time for the babies to go in for a nap under the heat lamp!

Inspiration - Shutters

I'm going to share inspiration pics from time to time. I'll try to share credits, but this first one is from my archives, so I'm not sure where I stole it from.

What a great headboard idea...

And I also want to do this with a shutter...

(Better Homes & Gardens Decorating Ideas Book)

I really need to find some of those shutters! Window companies are a great place to inquire - they often keep the old stuff they take off of houses. I have a window guy down the road with tons of great stuff... might just have to pay him a visit soon!

My New Favorite Tanks

I am sure I don't have the credentials to share fashion advice, especially here on my blog, but I feel so confident about this that I must share. It is one of those goodies that is so great I want to shout it to the world. And it is a basic.

It is this Mossimo Shirred Tank from Target.

They have it in an array of colors online (search 'mossimo shirred tank') and also in the stores. I chose Pirate Blue and layer it under a punchy green cardigan with crocheted flowers on the neckline.

The neck detail is sweet...

And the bottom hem has a weird tension to it that helps it stay down and not creep up - it is tighter than the body of the tank but I don't know why because there is no elastic in it. These tanks are plenty long, too, which I love. And, they have some spandex so they give and they maintain their shape after washing.

Love it!

Cupcakes as Gifts

I promised the three girls in my Awana class at church that one way or another, we would have us a cupcake party. Then I welcomed a terrible little bundle of joy into this world via c-section and disappeared from Awana, never to be seen again. Until tonight. Tonight is the awards ceremony. And I am supposed to give out the awards for my girls. This frightens me beyond ... well, there is not much that is worse in my book than speaking in front of people and having to remember names at the same time. When I am put on the spot, names flee from my brain faster than a speeding bullet. Anyway, I am going to make my speech short and quick and say that I did, in fact, come through (at the last minute - my usual style) and bring them cupcakes. And then I am going to hand the mic to the sweet girl who took over my class and thank her and tell the lovely people that she deserves to give out the awards, since she worked with them most of the year. Smart, huh? Or lazy? Or wimpy? I'm not going to think about it.

Anyway, I just finished the cupcakes. And they turned out pretty sweet. Here is how I did it.

First I made Deep Dark Chocolate Cupcakes and One-Bowl Butter-cream Frosting from the Devil -- I mean, Hershey's.

I am always trying to frost them fancy like the cupcake botiques. This is my current atempt. Ger a nice round blob of frosting on your knife. Plop it in the center of the cupcake and dab it, moving your knife straight up and straight down until the frosting spreads out to where you want it.

When you are done, and you lift your knife, it will leave a small peak. Smooth that out and you get this...

At first I liked the perfectly smooth ones like that, but then I got some like this that I liked even better...

For packaging, I wanted those nice cupcake boxes you get at Starbucks (not that I ever buy a cupcake there ;) but I could not find them yet. So I found some short, squatty, wide gift bags on clearance at target for $ 0.75...

Now, to get the cupcakes to stay put in there, I did this weird method. Take a couple feet of foil, cut it the long way and loosely roll it into a tube. Then wind it around your hand (size it so a cupcake can fit down inside it). You might have to shape it some. Then place it in the bottom of the bag. I told you this was weird...

Then, to keep it from getting all over the bag, I cut squares of wax paper as wide as the roll, then shaped them in my hand to slide down into the bags. Then I used tongs to safely lower the cupcakes down into the bags...

And here they are...

My only regret is that they look a little puny in the bags - I should have gone real fancy and made them muffin-sized cupcakes! But they're still cute.

Think the girls will forgive me for abandoning them?