Salmon, Cricut, and 2016

Made an iron on with my cricut!

Gourmet meal! 

Highly recommend this crack!

I am having so much fun playing with my cricut explore air machine, this baby can do everything!
Tried out the iron on stuff using a pre-made design, but I am now off and running and making my own designs now!

I took a tamale making class (will blog on that another time) at Sur La Table, while on break I bought this rub for my salmon dinners.
Last night I made the most amazing dinner using it. I made salmon, rice pilaf, and oven roasted asparagus with lemon pepper. I kid you not, it was better than any gourmet meal at a fancy restaurant!! We cleaned our plates! Even the hubby loved it and he is not a big salmon fan.

Happy 2016!!

The Monkey is the ninth sign in Chinese astrology. Number “9” is associated with ambition, activity, smartness, mischief and adventure.

I want to wish all my friends and family a wonderful 2016!

I hope you are healthy and happy all year long.

Peace and love to you all,

Jackie 

Merry Christmas...

I wanted to share one of my favorite, favorite, never get tired of hearing Christmas songs...

Kenny Loggins, Celebrate me home.

I love this video that goes with it, because more than ever we need to support our soldiers who keep us safe and free to live in America! Thank you for your service and I hope you all can celebrate Christmas with your loved ones, Merry Christmas everyone!

Vegas Day, Penguins, and Lobster!

This is the tale of Christmas in Vegas...

It starts out with me and my reflection in a Christmas ball on the tree located at the four seasons hotel...

the four seasons had a display, a tiny little gingerbread town, that was all....

now the bellagio goes all out with their display, a rocking horse just the size for the jolly green giant!

They had  Top Gun Tom Cruise penguin getting the cold shoulder from Kelly Gillis penguin...

The first family penguins taking a stroll with secret service penguin following close behind...

The secret service always on the job...

even Adele the penguin showed up to sing carols!

Boys to men penguins...

the coca-cola bear was there, we think he had a little too much eggnog, goofy bear!

Kim K penguin, the paparazzi was going crazy getting her picture!

The people trapped in the globe, we tried to hang out long enough to see them get their feeding...

the joker arrived...

the flag was flying...

I had the lobster omelet, fabulous, Tanya had banana foster waffle...

the bears were dancing...

Bellagio flowers, looked like jellyfish...

last but not least this Christmas pooch, what cutie pie!

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's chilly out, time for Chowder!

I love clam chowder, it is always available on Fridays anywhere in this town (Vegas Baby!)
Some are good, some are better, you just find the one that is right for you and it is always on the soup menu!
I always thought it was hard to make so I never attempted it, until now. Gotta thank pinterest for this one, not sure which blog to give credit to as I went to so many before printing one out and then could not find the source again! Ugh! It is so easy to get lost in the Internet!

Give this one a try, was a quick easy dinner, I served it with sourdough rolls, gotta have sourdough with clam chowder! Oh and a glass of Riesling. Next time I am going to serve some shrimp cocktails with it as well.

INGREDIENTS:

• 8-10 bacon strips, divided
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 2 celery pieces, chopped
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3-4 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 cup broth
• 1 bottle (8 ounces) clam juice
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups fat-free half-and-half, divided
• 3 cans (6-1/2 ounces each) of whole clams, undrained, chop into chunky pieces
• Bay leaf
• Chopped fresh chives or green onions, for garnish

1. In a Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove to paper towels to drain; set aside. In the butter, saute celery, leek, onion in the drippings until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Stir in the potatoes, broth, clam juice, salt, pepper and thyme. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

2. In a small bowl, combine flour and 1 cup half-and-half until smooth. Gradually stir into the soup. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

3. Stir in clams and remaining half-and-half; heat through (do not boil); turn down to low heat; add the bay leaf. Add 4 strips of bacon (crumbled).

4. Crumble the reserved 2 strips of bacon. Garnish chowder with crumbled bacon and fresh chopped chives.

December is upon us...

We are settling in to a routine, working from home, it is nice to be able to take care of the house and work all in the same place. I like not having to drive in the rain to work as it floods here most the time and people cannot drive in the rain safely. It is supposed to rain a lot this winter, so we shall see.

Hope everything is cozy and bright in your neck of the woods!

I wonder if I will get snow this winter in Las Vegas?

I know I will get rain!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone can get along this Thanksgiving!

I miss getting together with family but we have grown up kids and they have their own families to deal with. So, I found this picture, it reminds of my mom, Bewitched was one of her favorite shows.

Try to be happy where ever you are and with who ever you are with, 

life is too short for any other nonsense!

Good Soup recipe for fall...Y'all!

WINTRY WARM AND WONDERFUL: CHICKEN POT PIE SOUP!!

This is a recipe I have been coming across on pinterest, I viewed www.Shugarysweets.com
recipe and went with it, but changed some things, I gotta have carrots in a chicken pot pie recipe and some people have to put peas, but I can't put peas in mine, Hubby won't go for that!

I have to tell you this soup is so easy to make and tastes just like Chicken Pot Pie!

I  added more chicken broth as it did not look to be enough soup, so here is my version adapted from Shugarysweets.com, she has a great blog so check hers out as well....

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

3 tablespoons butter

1/4 onion chopped fine

3 celery stalks diced

2 carrots diced

1 broccoli head chopped

1/4 cup flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup cream

1 cup milk

s&p

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 package pillsbury pie crust - you are going to use one crust so take it out to thaw.

In a large pot melt butter over medium high heat. Add onions, celery, carrots, broccoli. 

Cook until softened, about 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle flour on and stir until flour is mixed in and no longer white, about 2 minutes.

Slowly and I mean slowly stir in the Broth, Cream, and Milk. keeping the mix at a low boil, stir in cheese, stir constantly. This helps thicken the soup. Turn heat to simmer and add s&p and chicken, cover and simmer while you bake the crusts.

Crusts:

Unroll the pie crust and using a pastry cutter or a knife or a pizza cutter, cut your dough into 1/2 inch wide strips and then cut into about 2 inch long pieces. Bake on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper for 5-10 minute at 450* just until lightly browned.

To serve, ladle soup into bowls and top with some of the crust pieces! Heaven in a bowl I tell ya!!

ENJOY!

Exercise, Photos and Quotes

 I had to move my treadmill into the house (was in garage) so we can store the boat in our 1 car garage and the racecar stuff in the big new garage. I wanted to make it feel like I had my own little exercise room. I moved out a bookcase and moved my dresser so I would have this corner open. I looked online at various home exercise areas and they all seemed to have mirrors and bulletin boards. I also printed out some of my favorite photos into black and white and framed them, I then cut a quote out of vinyl on my new cricut machine, I have various music lyric printed out all over my house so this had to be one too, I chose "Every picture tells a story by Rod Stewart, it is a great song and seemed to fit right over my photos! I love how it turned out! Will make my 3 miles a night a little more enjoyable. I still need one more quote over my board of inspiration...

I printed out inspirational quotes to keep me going

It's a tight fit but it works and I am happy to be able to exercise indoors

Here are the pictures I chose:

The linq's High Roller, I have ridden on this, fun!

Me, in Scandinavia, yeah I still can't believe I went there!!

I caught this cruise ship following ours, love this shot!

My hubby and I drove up pacific coast highway and I took this shot when we got to a pier for lunch

Hope everything is running smoothly for you, I have had some bumps and stresses during this transition of moving our office and shop back to our home, but I think by next month I will be settled in nicely....enjoy your weekend!

Expo, Wine and Winning!

We traveled to Ontario, CA for the last scrapbook trip of the year. We shopped and cropped at the expo, and ate dinner every night at the Ayres Hotel right next door, it is a wonderful hotel and we just love the people and accommodations.

At Expo, I got a Dave's Divas button and a Betty's Buddies button, you earn and collect buttons at each crop, Christy and Mary have lanyards full of them! I just wanted the two I got for my crop bag.

At the hotel restaurant I had the Fetzer Riesling wine, it was so good I found it here at home, Oh I can't wait until wine Wednesday when I can have it when I make shrimp alfredo for dinner!

The crop room was packed and there were waiting lists to get in to crop!

I would estimate about 125 tables at 4 per table for approximately 500 croppers!!

The winey scrappers!

Here are a couple pages I made:

Oh and for the winning part in the title of my post, Yep, I did it again! I won a raffle at the end of the night! I got the Spellbinder diecut embossing machine, a 200.00 prize that can cut and emboss 40 different types of materials! Whoo-hoo!!

Have a fun week! Talk to you soon....

Man Cave, Youtube, and Rain.

The man cave is finished and we will be moving all the racecar stuff into it next month. The office will be moved to our spare bedroom so if you plan on visiting better get a hotel room!

I am watching tons of youtube videos to learn all I can about making cool things on the cricut, thanks to all the amazing people who share their knowledge so we can all learn to make neat things, here are a couple I really enjoy watching:

Molly at ILoveMiniAlbums.blogspot.com
her video was amazing and what a funny gal!
Video: Learning to write with fonts on cricut

Lorrie at: Lorrie's story
She is very informative and you learn so much!
Video: Print then cut on cricut

It has a rained a couple times here in LV, and it is time to put away the summer clothes and break out my sweaters, time to make a pot of chili and clean my closet!

How cute are these pups in their sweaters?

Hope you have a relaxing weekend....

Workshops, Cricut Projects, and My Cats Halloween Costume!

The workshop is being built as I type, I am making really cool stuff with my Cricut and Sammy is the most adorable jester ever!!!

Building the workshop!

The first thing you do is name your cricut and add a graphic, this is soooo me!!

So flipping adorable! Made with vinyl cut on my cricut!

A die cut title for a scrapbook page layout! Yep, I made that!!

I had to make a folder for all my cricut notes...Yep, made all that too!!

Is he not the sweetest jester you ever saw??!!!

My faithful companion....Sammy