The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometime last year I preordered this book for my husband, probably the biggest 30something grown man fan of John Green EVER. Seriously, if they made a John Green sheet and comforter set, it would be on our bed. It arrived yesterday, and like the good wife that I am, I waited for him to arrive home and open it to see what color sharpie John Green had signed his book. (It was red, btw.) Anyway, after watching my husband read it for 2 1/2 hours nonstop last night, I promptly stole it off his nightstand around 1 am, and I finished it just a mere few moments ago.

I have to say of all the John Green books, this one is my favorite. I think it is that even though they were two cancer-filled teenagers, their relationship reminded me of our courtship, which began over an email conversation in regards to having a relationship with "more light than heat." I found out later that was my sweet husband's hidden attempt at "testing" my intelligence.

Anyway, enough about me, let's talk about the book. I had listened before to my husband's vlogbrother videos when John had read from the book, so I knew the premise. I was worried it would be a rather painful story since you figured someone was eventually going to die. However, it wasn't like that. I loved the love story. It brings back those memories of first falling for the love of your life. It was a fun and funny, and the plot twists were unexpected.



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Just a little FYI

After learning about GoDaddy's views on SOPA and their CEO kills elephants in his spare time, my website is moving. It is where all the tutorials are housed you can access. So, in few days they may become inaccessible for couple days while the DNS servers are moving.

Now that I'm an official college graduate, I have started working on crafty things again. Hopefully, I can get my act together and post some see and shows very soon.

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Like I said in yesterday's post, this is a compilation of a few recipes. This amount feeds my family of 5 plus leftovers for hubby to take to work a couple days. I'll post the long way and the changes for the quick and dirty way.


Long Way
2 chicken breasts
1 small onion
5-6 potatoes - cubed
2 cups of carrots - sliced
2 cups of chicken broth/stock
1 tbs minced garlic
1 tsp garlic salt
1 cup of milk mixed with 1tbs of flour
8 oz cream cheese
1 pkg of Reamed frozen egg noodles
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil chicken breasts in just enough water to cover them until thoroughly cooked. Turn heat down to medium and pull out chicken to cool. Add veggies, garlic, salt, pepper, chicken stock and some water (I usually add about 2 cups). Cook until veggies tender. While waiting, cool and shred chicken. When veggies are ready add chicken back to pot. Add noodles. Wait until its boiling again and then add the flour + milk mixture. Watch the pot and stir or it will boil over. Lastly add the cream cheese in large dollops and allow to melt. Don't try to stir it in or it will separate and look nasty. Once it's all melted, stir, add water if necessary and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes before serving.

The quick and dirty method speeds up the time because there is no waiting to cook the veggies. You just add a can of diced potatoes and a can of sliced carrots. Then, you can quickly add everything else and serve.

Easiest Homemade Bread Ever!

I discovered peasant bread. Whip this up with homemade garlic butter and…oh my goodness is it yummilicious!!

Our Christmas Eve dinner was homemade creamy chicken noodle soup, this bread, and homemade peach pie. So good!! I'll post my creamy chicken noodle soup recipe tomorrow. It's a hybrid of various chicken soup recipes I've found. I served my mother in law on Christmas day the leftovers and she loved it too!

Peasant Bread
What's good about this is it takes about 1 hr from mixing to baking. And there's no kneading.

1 pkg of yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups of hot water
4-5 cups of flour
Melted butter
Cornmeal

Mix yeast, water, salt, and sugar until thoroughly mixed. Add flour a couple cups at a time. Cover with towel for 20-30 minutes (or longer if you have time). Then dust your hands with flour and throw a little on the bread and cut it into two round loaves. Dip bottoms of loaves in cornmeal (or flour if you're out of cornmeal). Then place on cookie sheet and brush with butter. Bake for 10 minutes at 425. Then turn oven to 375 and bake for 15-20 more minutes. Let it cool just a bit before cutting. Yum!!

As for the homemade garlic butter, I just throw ingredients together. I soften a stick if butter then add a spoonful of minced garlic, a smaller spoonful of parmesan cheese, a few shakes Italian seasoning, about 1/2 tsp of garlic salt and mix well. Then I use my Pampered Chef cookie dough/ ice cream scooper and make little balls of garlic butter and chill them in the fridge for a bit before dinner.

I'm graduating on Friday!!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. There's probably 1.5 people still reading by now.

I've been finishing up my school work and assisting my husband in his school assignments for the last month or so. And I've started a little resale biz on eBay with my love of thrift stores.

And!! My mom has a friend on a quilt guild who is opening an upscale crafty place and my mom and I are going to share a spot. I can't wait!!

As for the title of my post…I'm walking the stage for my bachelor's degree on Friday morning. I'm getting nervous. I'm one of those people who are prone to falling on their face in public, especially while wearing heels. Wish me luck!!

I finally found this song!

This is an odd story...okay well not really, but whatever I'm telling it anyway.  As the few people who read this have probably realized throughout this blog, my husband is a HUGE Harry Potter freak.  Before baby #3, we were able to go to a lot more Harry Potter stuff.  Back when Half Blood Prince came out in the theaters, there were tons of parties and gatherings, blah, blah, blah.  We are some of the crazy people that dress up.  We usually go as Tonks and Lupin.  Anyway, so as other HP people know, there are wizard rock shows.  We went to a few of them, and at two of them was this band, The MudBloods, who consisted of one guy, Adam Dubberly.  We picked up his unmarked albums at one of this shows, and it wasn't wrock music, it was something else.  Hubby and I loved it.  I think at the last show we saw I was throwing out requests for these songs and asking him the names of the songs.  I just found him online again with a new band called Harvey Dowd, but I'm not sure if it's still in existence. I think he's a great lyricist. If you like their music, you can go to their site, Harvey Dowd, and download the entire album for free. I love all the songs on the album. We have a few more songs on that mystery album we bought that are just wonderful too.  

Here is one of my favorites in an acoustic version:

Here is Hubby's favorite. It even made him go read The Great Gatsby: