It's a Pinterestin' Summer!

**now updated with links!**

Friends, summer is here and my summer has officially begun!

School let out a week later than usual this year, which is fine, because we'll start a week later, but it already makes me feel like the summer is practically over already, which it isn't...ish.

The week after school let out, I was asked to lead the Bible Study rotation at our church's VBS, which I  admit I really didn't want to do at first, because I was so exhausted from school, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I will also tell you that I am so glad that I did it. While it was a busy week of dealing with kids that are much younger than I am used to, I was partnered with a very sweet lady who happens to be a librarian at one of our elementary schools, and watching her with the kids really motivated me and reminded me that I do, in fact, know how to handle younger children. It was a great week and it was neat to see aged working in me as He worked in the lives of those children. :)

The next two weeks weren't quite as fulfilling. I mean, they weren't awful, but they weren't my favorite. Every year we host a children's theatre camp at work for kids in the area and the camp serves as a fundraiser. Considering I work with another theatre teacher who works incredibly hard ad is so considerate of my time as a parent, she really did all of the hard work, so it could have been much more demanding, but I did find myself wishing I was at home with Nathan or getting things done. I probably wouldn't feel as resentful if we actually got paid for these two weeks, but we don't. Local readers, feel free to write a letter to the school board about that. ;) After the two weeks were over, I was like, ready to fly out the door and never return. Surprise.

Since my summer has actually started, I have enjoyed having time and energy to actually do things again. I have managed to cook more than just Hamburger Helper and our other usual go-to meals. All of the recipes I have used so far have been Pinterest recipes, and ok...I say "all" as if the last almost two weeks have been boing but home-cooked meals and that's not the case. I mean 3. Ok, 3 recipes. Not meals. Well, two meals and a dessert.

Sigh.

I really do feel excited about what I've done with them so far though! I would post the links and be somewhat helpful, but I'm blogging from my iPad at the moment and I don't know how to do that...but I'll edit the post later. I just have the time right now to post and I wanted to, so...yeah!

Last week, I invited my family over for dinner. We don't all get to be together often because of schedules, and everyone was there this time except for my older brother and my brother in law, but I wanted to have the family over. I decided on a whim to get adventurous in my cooking (which rarely happens), and I opted for a Citrus & Herb Roasted Chicken that I had just pinned. It intrigued me because it looked delicious in the picture, it mostly had in-house ingredients (assuming you make regular trips to the grocery store and usually have the staples in your refrigerator), the author of the recipe said it was cheap to make, and it didn't have a long prep/cook time. I ran to the grocery store, because lately, Travis and I can't seem to find the time to go to the store together and make a real trip. I of course had to buy some new herbs because the ones I have had in our spice rack for nearly four years that the recipe called for we're looking a little too aged. I essentially spent a billion dollars at the grocery store, but it really was because I didn't have a good spice stash.

It was one of the prettiest meals I have ever made, and it really was a light, summery choice. If you're not already following me on Pinterest, you should so that you can check out this recipe. I apologize in advance for how I lack hyper-organization on my Pinterest. I just have a recipe board, not a breakfast board, a lunch board, etc. I don't have the time, energy or desire to get that reorganized. Sorry.

Today I was feeling lazy but knew I didn't want to eat out, so I prepared a recipe (Crockpot Lasagna) that my sister in law, aka The Hazzardous Houswife (check out her blog!) made for us a few weeks ago. She is a bonafide Pinterester and is always tackling a new Pinterest project. You should seriously follower her if you don't already because she motivates you to try a new project every now and then. Anyway, I made that tonight and it was really good. It wasn't as good as Alissa's was because my choice of sauce, since I was lazy and just did the Ragu, but I'm going to steal her personal spaghetti sauce recipe next time. Again, you can follow her for that recipe (she even has her blog organized where you can look just at her recipes!) or you can search through my Pinterest, or probably just search crock pot lasagna. 

Then, my whole reason for being motivated for this post was the brownies I made tonight. Lets talk about me for a minute.

A. I am a chocoholic. I love chocolate more than most things.

B. I seldom make desserts from scratch, with the exception of my cheesecake which is always from scratch. I mean, a few weeks ago, I jokingly asked my BFF to come over and make homemade cookies because I wanted some without the work and took her up on her offer when she shocked me and agreed to make them for me.

C. I, as stated before, am rarely adventurous in my cooking, hence point B mentioned above.

So I found these brownies on Pinterest that just looked so good, with their huge chunks of chocolate and great photography. I read the recipe and noticed that I literally had all of the ingredients chillin' like a bunch of villains (seriously, so many calories) in my pantry, so I decided to go for it and make actual brownies from scratch, which I have never, ever done before,

They were soooooooo delicious. I ate them while the chocolate chunks were still all melty and gooey, and every calorie gained was worth it ten times over. I figure as many times as I chased Nathan around today, I earned those calories. 

That recipe is also on my Pinterest, posted under my recipes but also on the creatively named board. "Stuff I've Made." Actually the chicken one is there and I'll put the lasagna one there too. That's a much smaller board on my Pinterest because I pretty much neglected my Pinterest for the last year until now. 

On a non-recipe note, because I'm starting to feel like I have Ian unhealthy relationship with food since I've dedicated a very long and picture-less post about food, I also made a tissue paper pomander today thanks to instructions on Pinterest which was shown to me by my friend Jenica. She is the cousin to my BFF that makes me cookies and in the many years of our friendship, I've made numerous trips with her to go visit her family in east Texas. On my last trip with her, we were going up to celebrate Jenica's son's first birthday and she had these fabulous poms everywhere and talked about how easy they were to make. I made a mental note about them because at that time, I was just finishing up the first trimester of my pregnancy with Nathan. Well, now I'm in the midst of planning Nathan's first birthday party and wanted to be a copycat so I asked Jenica to link me to the instructions for the poms and was able to do a test run of one today. It was so easy and quick, and I've warned Travis that he will likely be assigned the task of making those with me because its THAT easy...and friends, Travis isn't exactly crafty. He's like a kindergarten student when it comes to crafts. I'm sure he could rock out a handprint project like a turkey or something though. ;)

Yeah, I would share a picture with you, but um, iPad blogging is making that too hard. Dudes, this is the most boring post ever. 

I'm also currently planning a bridal shower for one of my other BFFs, and I have a ton of recipes I want to use, but I want to do test runs of them first, so to tomorrow I'm starting that endeavor and I'm going to try a recipe for blueberry scones that claims to be super easy. I guess we'll see, and I'll try to be better about taking pictures so my next post about food is t so boring,

Thank you for making it is at if you haven't already given up hope of this ever ending!

[insert my fancy J signature photo because iPad blogger won't let me access it]