Garlic Parmesan Rollups

Garlic Parmesan Rollups

1 can crescent rolls

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Mix melted butter with salt, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder. Brush over unrolled, separated crescent rolls, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Roll up crescent rolls, and brush on remaining butter with seasonings. Bake for 10-12 minutes. 


Enjoy!

Adventures in Cooking

I was feeling a bit adventurous this week, and decided to try making my own red sauce. I'd been craving lasagna and realized I was out of my normal Bertolli pasta sauce. Publix didn't have any on sale, so I decided to make my own! It was much more time consuming than just popping open a ready made jar, but it was worth it! 

I found a highly rated recipe on Allrecipes.com and did some heavy tweaking. I was very pleased with the results. 

While the lasagna was in the oven, I decided to look for a good garlic knots recipe. Nothing I came across was very inspiring, so I pulled together my own. I'll include that recipe in my next post. 

So if you're in the market for a tasty red sauce, why don't you give this one a try. 

Red Sauce

3/4 cup onion, chopped

5-7 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

28 oz diced tomatoes

28 oz crushed tomatoes

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

Pinch of chopped bay leaves

6 oz tomato paste

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp basil

1 lb lean ground beef

In a large saucepan over medium heat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onions are translucent. Stir in tomatoes, salt, sugar, and bay leaf. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 90 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, Italian seasoning, and basil. Continue simmering for 30 minutes. 

While sauce is simmering, cook ground beef in large frying pan. Drain any grease and season with salt and grated parmesan if desired. 

Add cooked ground beef to red sauce. 

Serve with pasta, or use for making lasagna. 

Rooms To Go: Part 3

Well, I thought my Rooms To Go woes were over. Apparently not. 

A few weeks ago one of the side chairs broke. Unfortunately some one was sitting in it at the time. Thankfully they weren't seriously injured. The front leg cracked severely. 

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this set is defective. 

I called customer service, and explained the chair to them. I was flabbergasted that the lady was actually friendly and courteous. The stars have aligned! She let me know they would either deliver a new chair, or repair the old one if possible. She set up a tech appointment for the following Monday, and assured me that someone would call Saturday to confirm a 4 hour window. 

We ended up having to go out of town unexpectedly that weekend. My Grandfather ended up in ICU and we went down to be with family. With all that going on, I forgot about the phone call I was supposed to receive. It never came. 

Bright and early Monday morning, 8am to be exact, we got a phone call. The tech was outside of our house, wanting to know why we weren't answering the door. Oh geez. 

I felt bad. I know it wasn't his fault. So a few days later I called customer service and set up another appointment. Again, they neglected to call me with the 4 hour window. So I called again and was told between 8am and 12pm. 8am and a tech shows up, takes one look at the chair and declares "Yep, it's broken." He told us they would either deliver a brand new chair, or mail out a replacement leg. He wasn't even in my house 5 minutes. This seems like a massive waste of time and money, but it isn't my company so I digress. 

A few days later I received a phone call from a lady in the Service Department. She informed me that the chair was discontinued, and that I would need to go pick out another chair from the RTG showroom. Naturally, I was a bit confused. I'd been previously told by two people that the chair would be replaced or fixed. I explained this to her and she said "they shouldn't have told you that". Well that doesn't help. She told me they had looked everywhere, but there were no more chairs to that set. So I asked for a leg. Apparently there were none of those either. I asked if the manufacturer could not send out a leg, to which she told me no. According to her, it was all the manufacturers fault. They were refusing to send any legs because of liability concerns. 

Her liability comment left me wondering. We've had so many problems with this dining set. We can't have been the only ones. I received obviously used and damaged furniture so somebody else has dealt with this too. 

I decided to try and figure out who the manufacturer was. I started with my chairs. I was on the floor, looking underneath when I discovered my arm chair was severely cracked. Oh joy. 

I just got off the phone with a very nervous c/s rep. I'm telling you, you get a different story with every employee at this company. 

I explained the second broken chair, and again asked for my money back. They again refused. This time, however, I was told they were replacing the entire dining set. He told me I had to go back to the same showroom, I was originally told any showroom, and could pick out anything of equal or lesser value. If I wanted something higher priced I could pay the difference. Oh whee, more money for defective furniture that won't last. 

He did give me the name of the manufacturer of this table…Pinnacle... maybe that will be of some kind of help. 

I have yet to verify any of this as I haven't gone back to the showroom. I'm expecting problems, given the track record of this company. I'm dreading trying to find anything else. If I paid $1600 and got this kind of furniture, how much is something solid? Does RTG even have anything like that? I seriously doubt it. 

Here are my thoughts on all this. In my opinion, Rooms To Go sells substandard furniture for inflated prices. They hide behind their "contracts" and "policies". I've said it before and I'll say it again…if more people knew what they were getting into, and by that I mean not being able to get your money back, I truly believe they would have less business. Not to mention the poor c/s, rude employees, broken furniture, and everything else I've encountered in this nightmare. 

Rooms To Go has not been able to give me what I paid for. I handed over cash when I paid for this set. No financing or credit cards, just hard earned cash on the spot. Sadly, I was never given what I paid for. I was guaranteed satisfaction. Their little pamphlet has loads of glowing guarantees of "prompt service", "expert delivery in days not months", "convenience", "value", "package removal, setup and placement by trained professionals", and the clincher…"We guarantee that the merchandise you purchase will be in showroom condition upon delivery". I received none of this. Not one single thing they guaranteed has come to pass. All this is why I firmly believe I should be reimbursed in full. I'm not asking for anything more. I'm not asking for anything for all the time I've wasted dealing with this mess, the multitude of times I had to rearrange my schedule to compensate for their 4 hour window, tardiness, rudeness, unprofessionalism, and massive stress I've been dealing with because of this situation. No, I'm simply asking for my money back…and I don't think that's too much too ask. 

March Photo A Day: Day 16

Sunglasses

March Photo A Day: Day 15

Car

March Photo A Day: Day 14

Clouds

Wordless Wednesday

March Photo A Day: Day 13

A Sign

March Photo A Day: Day 12

Fork

March Photo A Day: Day 11

Someone You Talked To Today

A Girl Who Reads

“You should date a girl who reads.

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

― Rosemarie Urquico

March Photo A Day: Day 10

Loud

March Photo A Day: Day 9

Red

March Photo A Day: Day 8

Window

March Photo A Day: Day 7

Something You Wore

March Photo A Day: Day 6

5pm

March Photo A Day: Day 5

A Smile

March Photo A Day: Day 4

Bedside

March Photo A Day: Day 3

24 Hours

The past 24 hours have been…I don't have a word for them. I'm wordless!

I spent yesterday with a close friend. We relaxed, we ate, we shopped, we relaxed some more, and ate again. It was good.

I came home wanting nothing more than to curl up with my Mac and the next episode of Revenge. I'm catching up. I was about 5 minutes into this when I heard my husband start yelling. He had gone to take a bath and I assumed he was soaking blissfully. As he yelled for me, I heard the sheer panic in his voice. Leaping off the couch, I flung my Mac to the side and sprinted around the corner to find my husband standing in our bedroom soaking wet.

"Towels, I need towels now" he hollered and went running back to the bathroom.

I'm a classic panicker. When something happens I blubber and balk. I managed to get my wits about me, and went running to my laundry room. No towels. Where the freak are all my towels? I found some hand towels and went flying into the bathroom. There stood my husband in a sea of water with the two towels that had been in the bathroom.

"I have no idea how this happened" he stammered. "It wasn't me I swear, one of the cats must have gotten up there."

Uh huh, I said. Well the cats were out there with me so now what?

"Maybe we have a poltergeist."

Oh lordy.

Apparently he had started filling the tub up with water, then walked away. Somehow in between walking off and coming back in and climbing in the tub the sink got turned on. Unfortunately it was the sink that has been running slow since we moved in.

All of our sinks ran slow when we moved in and I fixed all of them except this particular one. Fixing entailed completely taking apart the plumbing fixture under the sink, just so you know. I guess it was such a nasty job that they had to be spaced out just to deal with them. There, my pathetic excuse for not cleaning the sink drain.

So the water was running full force, and the drain couldn't keep up thus the massive spillage. He didn't notice because the light was off and the tub water was running. Once he turned the water off, he heard water still running so he jumped up, turned on the light and discovered the chaos.

So there we were at 10:30 at night, sopping up a water filled bathroom. When I say there was water everywhere, I mean everywhere. It was on the brink of flooding into our carpeted bedroom. The counter was a small ocean, and it had spilled over and down the cabinets. Our pull out drawers were full of water, as well as the cabinets underneath.

We cleaned off the counter and dried everything, then moved to the drawers, and on to the cabinets. As I was sitting on the wet floor pulling every last thing from my cabinets two revelations occurred to me.

One, I do not have nearly enough towels, and two I have far too many toiletries stuffed in my cabinets.

Two hours later we finally had all the water cleaned up. The towels were in the washer, and the cabinets were left empty to dry out.

You would think I would have slept great last night. Unfortunately I tossed and turned. I kept thinking I heard water running. Haha.

This morning dawned and we headed out to run some errands across town.

We stopped at Chili's for a late lunch, but didn't get very far. When we walked in the hostess asked if we would be okay with a table. We told her no, we preferred a booth.

She got a bit snippy and informed us we'd have to wait. Okay, we will wait.

This wouldn't have been out of the ordinary had it been during a lunch or dinner rush, but it was 3pm, the slowest time for a restaurant. There were only a handful of diners, and the section she was seating us in had plenty of booths open with other diners in the same section.

The hostess huffed off and went straight to a server. She was waving her arms, and shaking her head. It was obvious she was aggravated and that she was talking about us. She then walked over to yet another server and did the same thing. We stood there for a minute or two and watched, then decided to just head somewhere else. I'm always afraid of getting my food spit in. Don't be mean to your server. I'm just saying.

Not that we were mean, because we weren't. Had she taken us to a table we probably would have just sat, but she did ask for our preference. Umm, don't ask if you don't wanna hear the answer lady. Sheesh.

So we went to Panera instead.

We got our food and plopped down, only to have people sit down next to us and proceed to talk extremely loud and mess with some noisy game. I couldn't hear myself think so we migrated to the back of the restaurant. Ahh, peaceful quiet bliss.

I was halfway through my soup when I looked up and realized I was sitting across from someone I had not seen in years. And quite frankly I had wanted to keep it that way.

I'm not trying to be mean, I promise. I try to get along with everybody the best way I know how. I won't go into detail, but have you ever had someone just completely destroy your trust and confidence in the worst possible way? This person nearly destroyed me, and was now sitting just feet away from me.

I had long wondered how I would react to seeing her again. As time passes you begin to build confidence. I had thought many times that I would be okay, but the nauseous knot in my stomach was telling me otherwise.

The room literally reeled for a moment, and all my senses screamed at me to run out of that restaurant. I sat there, praying desperately that she would not notice us and would walk out without saying anything to us if she did happen to see us. I knew if she did stop that I would most definitely lose my lunch, and upchucking a beautiful broccoli cheddar soup just had to be a wasteful sin.

Hours seemed to pass, but she did finally get up and walk out. Not a word was spoken, nor look exchanged. For that I am grateful.

It left me shaken, and dredged up a past time full of painful memories. I needed a shortbread cookie.

I do wonder why. It was a discussion shared with my husband. Why today, why here, why this very specific time? In the whole of this big city with literally millions of people why did God choose to let our paths cross. Maybe I will always wonder.

On our way home we came across a beautiful Husky girl wandering the streets. She was obviously lost and wandering like a nomad. She ran up to the truck when we stopped, but backed away when Richard got out to see if she had any tags. She was terribly skittish and kept running from him. I tried coaxing her into coming to me, but she would only get so close. She was dirty, skinny, and scuffed up. It was apparent she had been abused. We offered her some cinnamon roll and she hesitantly got closer as he tossed her small pieces, but when he put his hand out for her to sniff she jumped and backed away.

She had such a sweet face and had so many of the same mannerisms that Phoenix has. She huffed at me just like he does, and her woo was just like his. Those big brown eyes of hers pleaded so desperately to be loved on, but a time of abuse had destroyed her trust in people. I understood her and it broke my heart.

So tonight I love on my fur boy a little more as he's curled up with me on the couch. I know he's happy he was rescued and now lives a life of luxury with every toy and treat imaginable. I just don't think he knows how much he's rescued me.

March Photo A Day: Day 2

March Photo A Day: Day 1

Up

March Photo A Day

Another month has arrived! Take those photos people!

Photo A Day: Day 29

Something You're

Listening To

Photo A Day: Day 28

Money

Photo A Day: Day 27

Something You Ate

Photo A Day: Day 26

Night

Photo A Day: Day 25

Green

Photo A Day: Day 24

Inside Your Bathroom Cabinet

Photo A Day: Day 23

Your Shoes

Unidentified Glittery Blob

I'll give you a cookie if you can guess what it is!

I was going about my business in the house today when I walked in the bathroom for a potty break. I happened to look down and see this UGB. That's a Unidentified Glittery Blob. Ha.

I didn't have my glasses on, so I'm sitting there peering at it just waiting for it to sludge across the bathroom floor. I have an active imagination.

After realizing it wasn't going anywhere, I thought "Oh geez it must be poo! Who had glittery poo and what in heaven's name did they get in to?"

I'm sure you're thinking "Glittery poo? What exactly goes on in that house?!"

Honestly, glittery poo really isn't all that far fetched in my house. There is nothing that can't be licked, chewed, eaten, upchucked or pooped out around here. And in case you were wondering, I'm talking about the fur kids and not my husband. Har har.

The three of them are kind of infamous for getting into things. Between two cats that think they're dogs, and a Husky that thinks he's a cat/dog/human things stay pretty lively.

So I knelt down on the floor to have a closer inspection. Whoo, okay it's not poop. What the heck is that?? Poke poke. Yep, I poked it…bare finger and all.

It was then that I started laughing.

I realized it was my John Frieda foam dye. I had dyed my hair this afternoon and obviously had gotten a little crazy with the foam and a big blob went flying to the floor.

That was my excitement for the day! What was yours? Hopefully it didn't involve glittery poo.

Photo A Day: Day 21

A Fave Photo of You

Photo A Day: Day 20

Handwriting

Photo A Day: Day 19

Something You Hate To Do

Photo A Day: Day 18

Drink

Fabric Wreath Finished Pics

As promised here are the finished pics for my fabric wreath.

You can see the tutorial here.

Photo A Day: Day 17

Time

Photo A Day: Day 16

Something New

Crafty Project

I love Pinterest! I find so many cute things there.

I came across this really neat fabric scrap wreath a few weeks ago.

Cute huh? I needed something Valentiny for my front door and thought this would be perfect. So last week I set off to find a foam heart mold and some fabric.

I searched, and searched and searched some more for a foam heart. No luck. Either they didn't sell them or they were out of stock. Rawr! So I opted for a round foam mold.

I started with some pretty fabric I found at Jo-Ann's.

I cut it down into 2 inch strips.

Then again into 2 inch squares.

My husband walked in and saw me tediously cutting squares and says "There's gotta be an easier way to do that. Why don't you use the paper cutter?"

Haha, so Mr. Genius went and got it for me and surprisingly it worked! That made the process go quite a bit faster. Not to mention straighter!

After all the squares are finished, you take a pencil and place it in the middle of your fabric square. Make sure the tip is against the finished side of the fabric.

Wrap your fabric snuggly around the pencil, and dip the tip in some glue. I used Tacky glue. In this case, a little goes a long way.

Next, poke your fabric covered pencil tip into the styrofoam mold, and withdraw the pencil. The fabric should stay put in the styrofoam. I did find that after a while my pencil got tacky and the fabric wanted to stick. I simply sharpened my pencil a bit and we were back in business.

Continue poking your squares into the mold until you completely cover it. I did leave the back bare, as I had planned to hang it and want it to lay flat.

The final look you get is completely up to you. I had a tendency to stick mine very close, and ended up with a very tight wreath. I do like the looser look better I think. I ripped some of mine out, but overall it is very full.

I still want to do a heart one. I'm thinking heart foam with some polka dot fabric would be adorable!

Photo A Day: Day 15

Phone