Easy cinnamon roll recipe!

Okay, first of all, I'll start this by saying sorry that I forgot to take an "after" or "completed" picture!  :/ we were hurrying to go to a party and I was bringing these and I didn't think to take a pic before they'd all been gobbled up!

Here's how to make easy cinnamon rolls:

Make a quick bread dough of your choice (mine is the one I used in this meal).  

Roll the dough out on a nicely floured surface, so it won't stick (!!)

Melt butter (I used a whole stick for a double recipe) and then add a couple of tablespoons of cinnamon and enough sugar to make a thick paste-ish consistency.

   Yes, yes it is a lot of sugar :) 

Spoon the sugar mixture onto the dough and spread thinly over the whole surface.

 Roll it up and cut into slices!

 

Place the slices into a greased cake pan and bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes or till the dough is solidly baked and browned.

When baking is done, tip over onto a cookie sheet or tray and cool a little and eat!

Easy and delicious!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com Ultimate Annual Yearly Membership -- my short review and links to more reviews!

This is our family's third year using SchoolhouseTeachers.com, which is kind of a huge collection of homeschooling classes and resources.  You can read my earlier reviews here and here.  This is a subscription service, and as a subscriber/member, you have access to an enormous amount of courses for preschool aged students, up through high school--and even some for parents!

The Ultimate Annual Yearly Membership is a great value.  Please check it out and explore the site as well, but definitely also check out other homeschooling folks' reviews of SchoolhouseTeachers.com!

One thing I really appreciate is that they have a lot of courses for high schoolers as well as those for younger students.  My son used the Economics course and really enjoyed it (and learned a lot too!)  I also really love the Foundations for Teens course, which is an apologetics course geared toward teens-- covering a huge amount of topics, with great videos and worksheets/questions as well.

So I'm not going to go into detail about the courses, check into them :) They vary from just a worksheet-type or reading/questions class to audio lessons with guided notes to videos with questions...quite a variety of formats.  There is actually a separate section just for parents -- and these little courses or videos are not necessarily only about homeschooling...you'll find some neat ones such as Let's Talk Dinner (in which you and your spouse become more mindful about meals) and Spring Cleaning for Slackers (haha! Love that title!)

I do want to mention some of the "other" stuff available with an Ultimate Annual Yearly Membership  .  There are recordkeeping and planning guides.  There are scope/sequences for classes.  

Two of the extras which I would like to highlight are the World Book resources, which have a vast array of encyclopedia articles as well as other searchable media on a huge variety of topics.   This access is availablel with your SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership.  

Another really helpful section which is accessible to you is the "videos" tab--which brings you to RightNow Media -- and houses a searchable library of tons of great teaching videos!   The apologetics class's videos, which I referred to earlier, are found at this site, as are many others.  We happened to be listening to my older daughter's college chapel one day and really enjoyed the speaker, Donnie Smith, who was speaking about leadership.  We checked on RightNow Media through our SchoolhouseTeachers.com membership and found many other videos that feature his teaching--and plan to watch those.  It's easy to use and is an amazing resource.

I think each year that we use SchoolhouseTeachers.com we discover more things we like about it and different ways to use it within that year's homeschool plan.  We really enjoy it and plan to continue using it :) Check out their Ultimate Annual Yearly Membership as well as reading others' reviews to get a better feel for this great resource!

OH!  There's also a great COUPON code right now !  Here you go!  :)

Cold weather language... Arctic has two C's!!!!!

Yes, this is solely a little blip about something that drives me berserk :) This super-cold weather which is "sweeping our country" has inspired many news stories which utilize the word "Arctic."  Many many news casters pronounce that word like art-ic. I don't know why that bugs me so much, maybe because some people even spell it that way (the horror!)

Ahhh, so please pronounce both C's, at least around me! Thank you!!

PS I know this is crazy petty and this post is a teeny bit tongue in cheek...but really people... ;)

Another recipe :) For dyed hair haha :)

Here's a non-traditional recipe :) My oldest likes to dye the underside of her hair red--and she has quite darkish light brown hair (does that make sense?)  Through trial and error we have discovered what works for her hair.  She dyes it with Kool Aid and it stays for a LONG time!

Our hairdresser has said that it is not bad for her hair either (and it's very inexpensive!)

So how do we do it?  We mix 10 (yup! ten!) packages of cherry koolaid (the little paper envelope packages, with no sugar in them) with about 2 cups of water and heat it to boiling.  Then we let it cool down to touchable temp. 

We pour it into a glass bowl and she dips the amount of hair that she wants dyed into the bowl...and stays there for 30 minutes or so! (She usually lays with her head over the bowl and reads a book while waiting!)  After 30 minutes we run cold water over it in the sink till it runs mostly clear and then she takes a cool shower (brrr).  After that, all of her showers are usual, with shampoo and conditioner, she doesn't have to baby it.

The color stays dark nicely for quite a long time (months!) -- I will warn you, though, that it turns her pillowcase pink, even months after dye-ing (she washes her hair at night so goes to bed with wet hair). 

A new anniversary

One year ago today, my husband had brain surgery (!!!!!!!) for a condition called Trigeminal Neuralgia which he'd had for about 10 years.  We are so happy to be celebrating the one-year anniversary of his successful surgery (microvascular decompression). 

I can hardly believe it's been a year...and in other ways it seems like it's been longer.

I will say that he has NOT had that awful nerve pain AT ALL since the surgery.  That is such a huge deal.  If you have or know someone who's had Trigeminal Neuralgia, you will understand the import of that.  It's amazing.  He does still have numbness on one side of his face (he can still move it and etc, it just feels numb--he describes it like the feeling when you have novacaine at the dentist for a filling), and we had hoped that that would dissipate, but looks like it might be here to stay.  Still---leaps and bounds beyond his former condition. 

Here's my post from a year ago about it :)

If you have, or know someone who has, trigeminal neuralgia, please feel free to contact us to find out more about his surgery experiences!

We are praising God for the work that he has done in my husband's body, and for that which He continues to do!

Lentils! (where has this been all my life?)

My meat-loving family has found a new favorite food---and it's vegetarian!  Maybe even vegan! :) 

Our 4-H Club hosted a free community dinner a few weeks ago and someone brought this dish, and a lot of people didn't eat it, maybe because frankly, it looks kind of gross (see picture!)

Feeling kind of bad for the lady who brought this dish, I had a bowl of it--and YUMMMMM!!!!!  I think she called it Dal, which I think is just another name for lentils.  This is so easy to make and so amazingly delicious!!

It's not really even a recipe, just instructions!  Basically it is like this.  In the bottom of a large pot/saucepan put some olive oil, enough to cover the bottom.   Saute one medium diced onion and some garlic (I used about a spoonful of diced garlic from a jar) until the onion is soft.  Add 1/2 tsp of cumin and 1/2 tsp of salt.  Add about 1 pound of red lentils (they look kind of pink in the package--and then cook up golden!) and about 5 cups of water.  Bring this to a boil and then turn heat down to medium.  Cover and let it cook until the lentils are all softened and kind of a mush (maybe around 30 min? Keep an eye on it, though).  Let it sit for a few minutes and then eat!!

Last night we had it with rice and topped it with a little bit of sour cream--oh, it was so delicious!  You could use plain yogurt too if you'd rather.  

Seriously, we loved it, my teenagers, my husband, and myself.  And we are big meat-eaters.  This is a new favorite, and I'm not being loose with the terminology.  Really a favorite!

My succulent (hen & chicks)

Let me begin by saying that I am not much of an indoor houseplant keeper.  I can care for a garden over the summer, but I really don't have much success or experience with indoor plants (or outdoor decorative-type plants, like hostas and such). 

A friend gave me some plants that she was thinning out, and two of them were little bitty hens&chicks.  My grandparents used to have these out by the side of their house where it was rocky -- and that's a great memory for me :) .  I didn't know exactly where to put these plants, so I put them in a bowl and watered them every so often...this was a year and a half ago! 

I kept watering them every so often and lo and behold they stayed alive!  Half a year ago I planted them into some dirt, still unsure of where (outdoors) to plant them...and they're still there, right on the windowsill by my kitchen sink.

This plant looks so funny to me, especially how long and plump it is!  Usually they are so flat and pointy.  I'm guessing that I'm probably overwatering it and the orientation causes it to grow longer toward the light source (window).  But hey, it sure looks interesting!

So--I guess there's no moral to this story, no lesson, no tips.  Just an interesting picture and a long caption to it!

(if you're really looking for info on hens & chicks, you should probably google it...here's one option https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-care-for-hens-and-chicks-plants-2132609  )