Suzy Homemaker Strikes Again!

Well, apparently my distaste for pasta right now has created a new found urge to learn how to cook things I could easily buy back home.

It all started last night when the gears in my brain started turning so hard I'm sure there was smoke coming from my ears. I was craving good ol' cream of mushroom soup! Onto the internet I go. I figured it really can't be that hard to make and hopefully I had the things to make it. Well, did a little googling and found several recipes all varying slightly but I basically got the gist of what was needed and what I had to do...

Into the kitchen, pots and pans out... I began chopping away at some onions and garlic. I put them in a pot with about 3 tablespoons of butter and started browning. Then I added some broth seasoning (kind of like those little cubes but this is a powder), my frozen mushrooms and a little water and let it bubble. Add some salt and pepper to taste and then mix in a good tablespoon of flour to help thicken it. Mixing well, I then added a cup or 2 of milk and "wha-la!" After 2 minutes of letting it bubble and thicken I had concocted what I thought looked reasonably like cream of mushroom soup! Now, would it taste good I thought... DELICIOUS! I loved the bit of garlic taste to it! Definately something I'll have to try to make for hubby to see if he likes it.

Well, Suzy didn't stop there! I had a serious hankering for homemade cookies and had asked mom and Tammy for a few recipes and today Smartie Cookies it was! I started mixing and blending ingredients and in no time the batter was ready to be made into golden medallions filled with chocolate surprises! They turned out so good but I did discover that in my tiny little oven I only had to leave them in for 8 minutes instead of 10. Hopefully a few of these last until hubby gets home from work in around a week and a half!

And Suzy is still going.... so tonight I figured, well cream of mushroom soup was easy, why not cream of potato? It's a nice, warm, stick to your ribs kind of soup (and I was out of mushrooms). So I searched the internet once again to see if anything really varied in the recipes and found that it was basically the same. Off to the kitchen I went, boiling, chopping, sautèing and mixing... well this time i think I did a better job because the garlic and onion taste was just right. Not too prominent and not without flavour... I actually made a bit too much so we'll see if it reheats nicely tomorrow.

So Suzy had a full 2 days of posessing me, but it's ok, at least I learned how to make a different kinds of soup!

Oh yeah, before this Suzy Homemaker signs out, here's a little scrapbooking/visual inspiration:
Such is Life: http://911mom.typepad.com/whats_your_bloggin_emerge/
Pimp a Blog by Nellierose: http://nellierose.typepad.com/nellierose/
Toad You So: http://sixfive.typepad.com/create/
Inspirecompa: http://inspireco.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_inspireco_archive.html
Ok this one is for the yummy Halloween food ideas and sheer shabbiness!
And this last one is just because of the cute hat the little girl is wearing!!!
ShabbyGrace: http://amywathen.typepad.com/shabbygrace/2006/09/shabby_treasure.html

Searching for Inspiration...

So quite often I find myself surfing the net and checking out scrapper's blogs for some kind of inspiration to do up my own scrapbook pages. I've stumbled across some great forum sites with galleries and also some great blogs too.

Ok, so upon occasion (especially lately) I've been doing a bit of "crop-lifting" but sometimes I think it's the best sign of admiration. I mean there are some fierce croppers out there! So I decided to dedicate this post to scrapping...

So I've decided to include a link or two to some nice scrapbooking blogs I've stumbled across. There might be a little inspiration in these pages that get's your creative juices flowing... hey we all need a little inspiration sometimes!

Bits & Bytes: http://www.designbydani.com/blog/
Because You're Speshal!: http://everyoneisspeshal.blogspot.com/
And finally, I included this one cuz the dare (Dare No. 40) is all about FRIENDS... be it old friends, new friends, lost friends... the latest dare is to scrapbook your friends... now what a better idea than that!
We Dare You: http://fortheloveofeffers.blogspot.com/

I hope this helps you find a few new blogs out there you've never stumbled across and maybe helps you get at least one great cropped page done too! We all need a little inspiration sometime, I hope I inspired you!

Happy Birthday Maddy!

So it's my niece's birthday today... she's a whole, whopping 5 years old today! The big party isn't until tomorrow but sounds like she's still getting treated good today cuz her mom and dad are treating her to lunch, just the 3 of them while my nephew is at school. So I just wanted to wish her a happy birthday!!!

So yesterday was a great day!

Hubby was home for the day and treated me to Mickey D's! (Well, only because he knows I've been craving it and I almost crawled through the phone when he said he was eating there the day before!) So before we headed to Mickey D's, we had to go to the bank in Cremona and while driving around I told Giovanni that I heard my friend Kirsten and her husband had moved back to Cremona for the waterpolo season (Jeff plays professionally). So he suggested I try calling her and see if we wanted to get together.

In the meantime, I swore I saw Jeff on his bike just before I pulled my cell out of my purse but figured, there's a lot of people in Cremona and I'm sure it probably wasn't him... so I called Kirsten and turns out it was Jeff I saw! So we turned around and picked them up and off to Mickey D's we go! How exciting for me! Mickey D's AND english all in the same day... (yeah, not too much really happens in my life while G is gone to work).... but it was really a good time!

I know, Mickey D's isn't the most healthy of places to eat but when you're a Canadian living in Italy getting your ABSOLUTE fill of pasta, that greasy burger with cheese, bacon, sauce and whatever else they put on it looks pretty darn good! Thank you Mickey D's for inventing the Crispy McBacon!!!! Wayyyyy too yummy! Don't forget the fries too! You need your salt fix too!

So it was a great treat for me, but my BFF asked me later in an email if I got like 50 burgers to go.... believe me I was pondering getting like 2 or 3 to go, but I didn't really want to look like a little piggy so maybe when hubby is home next time we might just have to make a trip!!

As for all our chattering (me and my 2 BFFs) on the email about Mickey D's, I really hope SGF opted for a nicer restaurant for her anniversary as Schmoopy wanted to take her out... remember, you can always get take out to go home for later!!!

Raining Cats and Dogs!

So it's ben raining here so hard tonight that the power went out for over an hour... hold your surprise... it seems to be a common occurance here when it rains. It just sucked cuz it was so dark, AND I was home alone, in the dark (well with some candles) with nothing to do (because it was so dark. It was too early to go to bed and with the candlelight it was still too dark to read.
Well, the power finally came on again, AFTER all the half decent movies on TV were almost finished.... GRRRR!

Well, it's fall now so I guess I should get used to it cuz it rains cats and dogs most of the season!
Meow!

Well, I think our summer is finally come to an end... according to G that is. When I woke up this morning there was no bright sunshine but a somewhat greyish cloudy sky... not something I'm used to seeing the past few weeks. It's even been getting a bit chilly the past few nights. I've had to add my throw blanket to the bed. I haven't heard the forcast yet but I'm sure the rain is coming sometime today. It's one of those cool, damp feeling days... anticipating the rains to come.
So I guess I'l be using my jeans again and my poor flip flops that I just bought this summer will probably be retired anytime soon. The sweaters will have to be brought out of the closet once again....

Ah! Fall has arrived!

Photo by Melissa, Japanese Maples at Parco Sigurtà Giardino... a little background...
"The park is one of the world's 5 most extraordinary gardens. The park started life back in 1617 and was used by Napoleon III as his headquarters in 1859. The park hosted such illustrious Nobel prize winners as Konrad Lorenz in the 20th century. Today the gardens offer 560,000 square meters of spectacular views, brilliant colours and picturesque corners that follow one from another in the most surprising and enchanting way." Website here: http://www.sigurta.it/

Well, goodbye MSN...

It's gotten just too frustrating to try and blog in there. They keep changing the program and lots of my friends can't even get in to see my blog anymore so I figured I'd try a change.

So, here we go....