Daisies

Daisies

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Serenity Now!

I wish it was as easy as screaming "SERENITY NOW!" ala George Costanza's dad in Seinfeld. It has been a couple of days since my last post, life has been very very busy. School is back in full swing for all and this A&P online course is more of a fast paced rollercoaster than I thought it would be. I am keeping up, but it takes extreme organization via my planner. Deadlines deadlines deadlines. From the inside, my life does not look so organized. There are piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away. There is a house that could use some cleaning. There are boxes from over a year ago waiting to be unpacked, oh my. I am not one of those people that finds a place for everything, I sometimes wish I was...but how does anyone have a place for everything?? There is always so much stuff, sentimental stuff, useful stuff, and rubbish as well. I am forgetting the housework and the crazy unachievable lists for some serenity now. Yes all of that has to be done at sometime, but I choose family time, crafting, cooking over these for now. There is always a day off when everyone is at school or work that these things can get done. It will happen then. For now there is lots and lots of cooking to be done.




 

 
 1. Sweet potato and coconut ravioli with vegetables
 2. Banana muffins
 3. Bluberry Lemon Cake...again.
 4. Carrot Tomato Basil Soup
 5. Acorn Squash waiting to be stuffed
 6. Acorn squash stuffed with a quinoa vegetable mix and topped with cheese

Hoping you find your serenity too.
Yasmin

Monday, August 20, 2012

What's Cooking?

The fact is, I cook a lot and I also happen to cook for a living and I attended a prestigious culinary school with the likes of Julia Child as alumni. I love love love to cook and though I may end up choosing a different career path in the future, which is more condusive to a family life, I truly love to cook for my family and friends. I started noticing that food is featured constantly in my blog, so I thought why not do a weekly Monday "What's cooking?" post.
So, here is what is cooking today...



Mexican Lasagna! I used corn tortillas as the noodles and used left over potato, black bean, corn mexican mix as the filling. I used a good quality canned enchilada sauce and taco sauce as the marinara. Topped off with Mexican Blend cheese. It turned out wonderful and was a great hit with the family. There was nothing saved for leftovers. Yumm.
Please feel free to share what's cooking in your kitchen through the comment section.
Peace, Yasmin

Friday, August 17, 2012

This Moment

Joining in today with Soulemama in "This Moment". A moment from the week that I want to cherish and remember.


Now you may be thinking, "What's so great about this moment"? Well its all about the context, isn't it my little dumplings. This is just after 6am this morning, when I took the dog for a short walk on our quiet sleepy street. The first picture is of me on my bed, drinking Gaia Revitalize Mint Tea and listening to Classical Music, Beethoven's Sonata #20 to be exact. What a lovely morning it is. Ok now off to drop the kids at school and go to work myself.
Have a lovely day, Yasmin

Thursday, August 16, 2012

And They're Off

There is something to be said for quiet mornings, opening all of the windows, folding laundry without distraction, listening and dancing to music while doing the dishes. That is exactly what I did this morning after I dropped the kids off at school. They were excited to see their old friends and meet new ones. A whole new school year beginning. Rian in 1st and Ashleigh in 4th. This is the last time they will be in school together until Highschool when Rian is in 9th and Ashleigh in 12th. A scary and somewhat sad thought. Jason also went back to work today and I will also be leaving in about 20 minutes, as it is the end of my staycation as well. Oh if only I could just stay home all the time...but for now this works, with a lot of help from my mom. Thanks mom.
Some late night bread baking, so the kids had bread for sandwiches today.
This morning at 7:25am, they were off to be driven to school.
A depressed pup, because she has not experienced such a quiet household in atleast 3 months. Where are the kids to play with her?
Progress being made on the current hat, late last night while the bread was baking and early this morning before the kids got up.
Hope you all have a lovely day,
Yasmin



Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Just keep cleaning

Yesterday was our major house cleaning day. It needed it and I still have a bit more to clean, but overall I am very happy with what we were able to accomplish. In order to keep cleaning I opted out of going to my mini knitting circle, but don't worry...I will be going at 1pm today to keep my sanity. Amidst all of the cleaning was lots of cooking and even a nice walk up our little mountain that we live on.

For lunch I made quinoa with garlic, onion, carrots, chanterelles, acorn squash, pumpkin seeds, sage, feta, and salt & pepper. The flavors combined so well together and I think we will have to repeat this meal in the future. Yumm.





 We went on our walk after lunch to that lovely bench spot and spent some time enjoying the flowers all around us. Ashleigh tried some cartwheels and a headstand...she is getting quite good at those. I also had to snap a picture of this person's garden, because it is gorgeous and in full bloom.

Dinner was sushi with sauteed ginger shiitake mushrooms and Japanese style omelet. I also made some miso soup to go with our dinner.
I am also joining in with Ginny over at Small Things for her yarn along. Started knitting a new hat, this time with a generic charcoal gray medium weight yarn that I had in my stash. Yay for diminishing the stash. I also recently started reading "After the Quake" by Haruki Murakami. It is very good so far and I do really enjoy Japanese fantasy/sci-fi. The great thing about this book is that it is a collection of 6 short stories...just long enough to keep your attention. Anyway I am off to get ready for Meet the Teacher day for the kids as this is the last day of summer vacation and we are all back to the grind tomorrow.
Peace, Yasmin







Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Keep Calm Craft on {Crafting on}

I am joining in today with Nicole over at Frontier Dreams to share some crafting going on in this house. Like her, I think crafting keeps me sane and is my main stress reliever. Last night I finished my first hat and it turned out beautifully. This happens to be a gift for someone (ssshhhhh don't tell).


My son graciously modeled it for me and for you guys. I really do love the colors in this Malabrigo yarn...I'm sorry but I don't remember what the color was called. On a side note, my husband and I went to purchase our textbooks for college yesterday and the total combined was just over $1000! Can you believe how ridiculously expensive school books are, thank god for our Pell Grants. For my classes I only had to buy three textbooks, but they were all atleast $150 each. This is why I need crafting to keep my stress levels down. I also wanted to let you know that the pattern was from the Yarn Harlot and it is called Lorne's hat, but just to warn you, you have to do the rib pattern for 30cm before decreasing.
Hope you like it, Yasmin

Monday, August 13, 2012

What's Cooking?

The fact is, I cook a lot and I also happen to cook for a living and I attended a prestigious culinary school with the likes of Julia Child as alumni. I love love love to cook and though I may end up choosing a different career path in the future, which is more condusive to a family life, I truly love to cook for my family and friends. I started noticing that food is featured constantly in my blog, so I thought why not do a weekly Monday "What's cooking?" post. I don't know how to change the format of my posting so that we can see people with their links right on my homepage, like Ginny over at Small Things, but you should be able to add a link of your "what's cooking" post onto my comments area. If you know of a way to change the posting format, let me know.
So this is what I am cooking...



A 3 egg omelet made with red onion, garlic, chanterelles, goat feta, and salt & pepper. Delicious. Everything is from the tailgate market, except for the s&p and the oil used to saute the vegetables. I served it up with some hot sauce(ofcours) and a leftover tarragon dinner roll. I am also drinking a lot of tea recently, because we are out of coffee till the end of this week atleast. It is Gaia Revitalize Mint tea.
So what are you cooking?
Yasmin

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Weekending

Hello friends, today we had an awesome day out in the sun. I made "White Pig" blueberry pancakes for the family this morning, while making food for our planned picnic and pasta sauce for our Sunday night spaghetti tradition. I came to the realization today that I post a lot about food...this may be due to the fact that I love food and I love to cook. So I am thinking about a Monday "What's cooking" post on a weekly basis to share what I have cooked and for others to share what they are cooking. What do you think? The only thing I am not sure about is the format so that I can get people to link their "What's cooking" post onto mine and for all to see...any ideas? Or is that not even possible through blogger? Anyway to get on with this post, by 11am we were ready to get on our way to the Smokeys. We went through Maggie Valley and Cherokee and after quite a bit of wrong turns, we finally made our way into Smokey Mountain National Park. It was a gorgeous day and the kids had a ton of fun.
The View from Clingman's dome.






Wildflowers were everywhere, a picture of the actual Smokey Mountains(notice all of the dead trees, I read that some bug that came over from another country is killing the trees), and then the most perfect frasier fir...this makes me yearn for Christmas time.



We saw a sign for the appalachian trail and decided to take off onto the trail. I dream of one day hiking a big portion of the trail and maybe even one day doing a full thruhike. This made my day. It was a very rocky and wet trail, but the kids did beautifully and Rian kept exclaiming how much he loves to hike now. Lovely.



Butterflies everywhere and we even spotted a bird.






  1. "White Pig" Blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
  2. Onigiri and Edamame for the picnic.
  3. Pasta sauce.
  4. The dinner table set with tea for everyone.
  5. Garlic and Thyme dinner rolls.
Hope you all had a lovely day as well.
Peace, Yasmin