Friday, April 3, 2015

Friday's Fresh Picked Recipe!

I love to cook! I love trying new and different things! From Vegetarian dishes to Beef stew! I haven't gotten to a Vegan dish yet but it's day will come. These are not just any recipes! They are low-calorie and awesomely delicious recipes! First one up is my absolute Favorite! Please enjoy and know that what you eat is good for your palate and waist line! Enjoy! 

Image from cookinglight.com

Roasted Chicken in a Mustard-Thyme Sauce
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil 
8 boneless chicken thighs, skinned 
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided 
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon butter 
1/2 cup chopped onion 
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 cup no-salt-added chicken stock 
4 teaspoons flour 
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 425°.

2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Sprinkle chicken with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Add chicken to pan; cook 4 minutes on each side or until lightly browned. Remove chicken from pan; place in a glass or ceramic baking dish. Bake at 425° for 16 minutes or until a thermometer registers 165°. Remove chicken from dish; reserve drippings.

3. Return skillet to medium-high heat. Add butter; swirl to coat. Add onion and thyme; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. 

4.Combine 3 tablespoons stock and flour in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Add flour mixture, remaining stock, and reserved drippings to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Bring to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from heat, and add mustard, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, stirring with a whisk. Serve sauce with chicken.
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Thursday, April 2, 2015

Start Spring with a Fresh Look in Your House.

 Spring has finally sprung and I'm looking for a change! Something fresh and new to catch my eye. I have quite a bit of antique wood furniture. I don't much like painting it for several reasons. While I can appreciate the way an antique distressed dresser looks, I can't get over the fact that in the process of making something look cute you destroyed something that has a classic, timeless look. After painting and distressing something you can't always restore it back to the original. So I leave the distressing for newer furniture that catches my eye.


I currently have 4 antique dinning room chairs. I inherited them from my Busha (That's polish for Grandma.) She was a beautiful and wonderful women. I was blessed enough to get be able to call her my Godmother as well as Great Grandma. Luckily I have a few pieces of her here with me in my house, the chairs being one of the them. They look like they have been reupholstered before with a dark brown velvet cloth. While this does look nice I want something bright and fresh to contrast against all the wood I have going on in my house.
This is the original chair. 
 You Start by taking the seat off. This one Unscrews from the bottom
I need a flat head screwdriver ( not pictured) to take the seat off my chair. 
Along with :
Scissors
Your choice of cloth ( I needed 1 and a quarter yard)
Staple Gun
and Needle Nose pliers to take the old staples out. 

The original measurement for the seat was 23" x 26" which is a smaller size seat than they usually make today. I had purchased much more cloth than that. I folded the cloth into quarters and cut along the edge.



 Than I placed The seat in the center of the cloth and started stapling the cloth around the bottom. Make sure to pull tight! I had to redo the first one because it wasn't tight enough!


This is such a quick and easy DIY trick to put a little spring into your house. It maybe took a couple hours with interruptions from kids and husband ;)

                                     



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Monday, March 30, 2015

A Tried and True Refocusing Strategy

               Oye Vay I Say! Being a student is hard! Yes I am complaining but it's true! I find when I'm getting good in one area of my life it's because I'm lacking in another. This week I was feeling like I was spending much more time with my husband and kiddos, and then BAM! I did bad on my Chemistry Exam. I didn't fail mind you but the grade I got still bothers me.

  I have four weeks left of this semester and I need to hunker down and refocus. 
The question is.... How?
Am I being too focused in an area of my life that I could let go for just four more weeks?
Perhaps the house? Maybe the blog? The thing is I love the blog. The idea of writing all my thoughts down makes my mind more open. Whether someone's going to read it or not.

Maybe my problem is balance. I try to perfect one thing too much and I loose focus of the bigger picture. SO, what is my big picture right now?

 Passing with an excellent grade this semester, of course!

I remember using a strategy a teacher told me about the first time I went through nursing school. Give yourself a little lee-way. Focus for 15 minutes, then go do whatever pressing thing that's nagging at the back of your mind. Do something quick, like changing the laundry; or for bigger projects do them in steps. Don't spend more than 10 mins away from your studying. 15 minutes on, 10 minutes off. It worked wonders and it will work for me again.


What kinds of re-focusing strategies do you use?
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Friday, March 27, 2015

The TGIF BLog & Instagram Hop.


Happy TGIF! Fridays have always been one of my up most favorite days of the week. Which is why I started this growing, fun, friendly, inspiring hop! I am thankful to have each and every one of you that link-up and share with us each each. Thank you! 


Celebrate with us making it to Friday!

The TGIF Blog & Instagram Hop is a Friday friendly hop where we hope you can blossom, meet and greet new bloggers. We enjoy having you. 

Each Friday we will feature our most favorite post from the previous week. It could be you! We also have a weekly Cohost spotlight, that is great to gain your blog some extra notice (enter here). 

The rules of the TGIF Blog and Instagram Hop Are simple!
1. Link-up any post or posts (no specifics) and your Instagram.
2. Grab a button and display it on your blog, in a post or somewhere visible to help us get notice for the Hop. Also helps us better feature your blog.
3.Be social. Comment and follow at least one blog you enjoy. 
4. Tweet out the TGIF hop. 
Tweet: Link up at the #TGIFhop with @kaitlynmarie003 @desireephillips @silviearmas @ryderbunch @scggirl #instagramhop #bloghop http://ctt.ec/8oM2V+

: Three Sisters and us :Mice In The Kitchen :Second Chances Girl :CompleteBliss Blog 


Meet This Weeks co host
I am the mother of two adorable children, a wife, a full time nurse, part time student and raise chickens in my spare time. I love to run, read, write, DIY, fitness and healthy living. Follow me through my world of Love, Life and Chickens.


Want to be our next Cohost with a special spotlight?! Cohost Form HERE.


 This Weeks TGIF Feature

 From the blog of:Our Pretty Little Girls
Be sure to check her blog out: here.







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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Housing your Chickens

Oh there are many finely built, artfully crafted, aesthetically pleasing coops out there. Many you can buy off line, This $3,800 beauty can be found at www.urbancoopcompany.com:
It can house up to twenty chickens!


And then there is ours:
Please attempt to look past this very pregnant belly and gaze at the awesomeness that is The Palette Coop. This houses up to ten chickens at a time.

My husband constructed this coop, on a challenge from me, entierley out of palette's and recycled materials. And I have to say well done hubby of mine. This coop doesn't look too shabby. The nesting boxes are made out of old cupboards, any hardware is used and discarded from our kitchen (which is in the process of a never ending remodel), and he even added shingles; which came from when my in-laws re-shingled their roof. He built it in the garage over winter and we've had it for over a year now.

Attatched to the front is a dog run he got for free off of Craigslist. We made the fatal mistake of not putting some wiring over top at first. A hawk swooped in and scooped one of our chick-a-dee's up (RIP Dora). It now has netting over top so this does not happen again.

This just goes to show you, you DO  NOT need something expensive to put your chickens in. Chickens were bred to be resilient animals. And well.....they poop all over the thing anyways so there is really no way of keeping it entierly pretty anyways.




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Monday, March 23, 2015

Loosing a Patient.

   As a nurse, loosing a patient you have know for awhile is not easy. I recently helped a patient pass.

           My patient was dying. Here I was in her families’ house, sitting in their chair and watching their T.V. I had just checked to make sure she was comfortable and gave her, her scheduled medications. She looked comfortable, as comfortable as one can be while dying.
I was looking through my schedule to see what extra days I could pick up throughout the month. I had a trip planned to South Carolina at the end of May and I wanted to make sure I had enough money to cover my expenses while down there. I was looking back and forth from my schedule, the T.V., the outside and my patient to make sure she was still breathing. I was not there to save her life but to help her pass. It was my first experience as a nurse with this kind of up close dying.
It was the middle of March and spring had just begun. The blanket of snow covering the ground had started to creep back exposing the frozen grass underneath. Cold tears of water would drip off the roof onto the back of my neck as I walked through the threshold of the house. The wind still had a nip about it but the sun warmed away the thought before it had formed.
My patient’s daughter had just gotten back from a run and was doing things around the house in her pink bathrobe and slippers. She always made the nursing staff feel welcome but throughout the years I couldn’t help feel like an intruder. Here I have sat for the past two and a half years watching this family’s life take shape. I’ve watched the youngest grow up and the oldest leave home. It feels like I watched it all through a window from where I sat in the sun room with her mother. Now I will be here to watch her mother pass and support the family through this.
Although I am just a tiny ripple in the journey of taking care of her mother I can’t help but feel momentous at being here for the end. I suppose I am just happy it was me who was here, someone who had been here the whole time and knew the family. I doubt I am even noticed though, which is just as well, it is not about me.
I look up from my budgeting to see the daughter standing in the doorway. A raw and powerful look on her face. One mixed with love, bitterness, longing and sadness. At this point my own personal musings stop. I felt a part of her moment even though she would never know. I felt her same somberness at losing her mother and having her life end way too soon. I wanted to say something to comfort her but what? Something cliché? No. this moment deserved better than that. So I let the silence be. I let it take over and wash through the room. I could hear every memory running through her daughters head and see them in her eyes.

Soon she moved along in her daily routine but continued to glance at her mother every time she passed by the sun room. Even after I had left house for the last time, I would still feel the sorrow of her daughter’s grief from time to time. Her mother died in the best way; surrounded by love and by family. She did well by her mom, which is what God always intends for his children to do.
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Saturday, March 21, 2015

How to Get Started with Your Chickens!!!

 

     We actually started last year  but the chicks stayed elsewhere until their feathers came in and we could put them outside. I had a new born at the time and could only handle so much. So a friend of ours kept them at their house and they said it was super easy! Make sure you know the local laws first before you get started. We have one such law here in Michigan that "helps" to cut down on suburban farming. I put help in quotes because I don't think that is something that is helpful at all. The chickens are much quieter than dogs and who wouldn't want fresh eggs everyday? But I suppose some people would want to get a rooster and there in lies the problem.
      First you might want to do some research on what kinds of chickens you want. We didn't really do that though. We just got whatever they were selling at Tractor supply company. TSC has an annual event called Chick days, it goes from late February till early April. They have ducks too if  you want to try those.

We got Barred-Rocks (Plymouth Rock) Chicken:
                                                   These chickens are our best layers.


Ameraucana's, which can produce green, blue or pink eggs:



And Isabrowns:


We got the some mystery chickens this year. The farmer who sent them to TSC wasn't able to tell them what kind they were, but we are guessing White-leg Horns which should look like this:
Also the yellow chick pictured above

        My husband and I often have a half formed plan that seems to throw itself together after we have already made the jump. There are all types of containers/crates/ what have you, to keep your chicks in. There's a pluthera of products out there but for us we just kept it simple. We found a huge tub at TSC, grabbed a bag of what looks like hamster bedding, a feeding container, chick food and a water container.
                                        I couldn't really tell you why there's a kids plate in there
                                              but if I had to guess, I would guess Madison.
         
       The chicks are too little to be outside so we keep the tub in our dinning room until their feathers come in. Like I said I'm sure there are different (or even better) ways to do this but this is what is working for us. My husband made a cover for over top of it so the chicks wouldn't get out and so the cat couldn't get in. We strung a heating lamp from the ceiling ( not by the cord) and have it hovering just above the tub. The chicks need a temperature of 95 degrees F for the first week of life, you'll notice their feathers starting to come in soon after that. Chicks grow surprisingly fast! You can reduce the temperature another 5degrees every week there after until you reach 70 degrees.


By that time they should have their feathers and only need a heating lamp at night on. Right now our chicks are about 4-5 weeks old. and look like this:






So weather pending, we are hoping to get them outside within the next 3 weeks. Some of the chicks are younger so they may need to stay inside a little longer. If this is the case we will keep all of the chicks inside. Chickens have a short memory. They are used to each other right now but if separated will forget one another. When reintroduced they will try to establish a pecking order, which could lead to fights and deaths. So keep your chickens together!

 I will make another post on how to reintroduce chickens if you ever need to separate them. We are in the process of doing that very thing.
     
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