Apple cinnamon deliciousness

Found the recipes on Pinterest. All I can say is yum!


Cinnamon sugar tortilla chips, pie crust cookies, and apple pie dip. All made by me! It was like mini apple pies.

Conspiracy Theories

I have craft insomnia! I have the urge to learn how to crochet. Originally I woke up for the same reason that most parents of very young children do. One of them woke up and I had to coax them back to sleep. Now I'm awake and not falling back asleep. I blame pinterest, facebook, and youtube. I shouldn't have looked at the computer. They make me want to be crafty and look at all the amazing crafts I should be doing or want to be doing. They are insomnia enablers. I bet they get paid by the companies that make sleep aids or coffee. I bet the coffee companies are behind pinterest. They make you stay up late pinning and repinning and hoping one day you'll have the time or energy to do or make something fabulous that you saw on pinterest causing you to need a pick me up in the morning. I don't personally drink coffee because it has a weird effect on me. It makes me jittery and my heart feels like it's going to explode and I very quickly get sleepy. If it weren't for the heart exploding thing I'd drink some right now to help me get back to sleep. I just can't do caffeine. I'm a green tea kinda girl.

I just painted my nails. I tried to do the ombre nail design and failed horribly. I guess that's what happens when pinterest strikes in the middle of the night and you don't have all the necessary tools. I'm not discouraged, I will try again and succeed. Pictures to come!

All is quiet for now, let's hope it stays this way! Thank you for listening to my crazy insomnia induced rant. Wish me luck!

I'm baaack!

Well I have decided that I want to get back at this old writing thing. I'm going to start with blogging more again and hopefully when I feel brave enough I'll write a short story then one wondrous day I'll write a novel. So there's been a lot of changes since I last wrote. I had another baby. So now I have two beautiful daughters!

They are a delightful handful! 14 months apart and I wouldn't change it for the world. It has some challenges as you might imagine, for example, I don't get a lot of uninterrupted time to myself, so if some of the things I write ever seem a little disjointed you'll understand why.

Another great development is that I am back on weight watchers. I started up when one of my friends had her baby and roped me into joining again. I am so thankful and glad she did. I started on July 3rd and have lost a total of 16 pounds so far! Whoot Whoot! I'm also on a new exercise routine. As you may have noticed from some of my past posts my husband (then fiance) and I were doing Power 90 and we had wonderful results. I lost a ton of weight right before I got pregnant. I am so close to being back to that weight, just 2 pounds to go! Anyways I'm now doing Insanity! and it is just that, Insanity! I am pouring sweat by the end of every workout, but boy does it feel great.

I just started incorporating walking into my exercise routine as well. My goal is to eventually run a 5k. I got an app, Couch to 5k, that is supposed to help get me there in 8 weeks! I'm hoping by next year at this time I'll be able to run a half marathon. I really don't like running all that much though. I kinda feel like I have to do it because it is the only form of exercise my kids will let me do while they're awake and that's only because they are strapped down and can't move in their stroller. Silly me, one day I tried to do an insanity workout with both of my children awake and in the room. That lasted about 5 minutes, if that! As I was bending over to do a push up or something my oldest jumps on my back after I calmly remove her from my body she does that thing that kids love to do when you are busy. She proceeds to call me a hundred times in a row and I answer her, but that's not good enough I'm not paying enough attention to her and a full blown tantrum ensues. I could be sitting perfectly still on the floor staring at the wall and she'll just be playing by her merry little self, but If I try to do something anything that requires any kid of concentration she needs my attention instantly. My younger daughter is starting to learn this tactic as well so now I'm getting double teamed by toddlers. 

Clearly I don't have enough to do because I am also the current President of the Antioch Chapter of the MOMS Club (Mothers Offering Mothers Support) and I recently began selling Mary Kay Skin Care Products and Cosmetics. Everyone deserves to look and feel their best. Here's a link to my personal website www.MaryKay.com/antoinetterbrown Feel free to make a purchase! 

I think you all are caught up now... I'm going to bed! Wish me luck!

Terrariums- How to

Making terrariums is a fun little project that helps you bring a little bit of green into places you normally wouldn't see any. They allow you to bring nature indoors into your home or office. Terrariums are neat little ecosystems, that can be portable. I have made a handfull of terrariums in the past. See my previous posts Terrariums, Another one, and my tumblr for pictures. They're relatively simple to make. The hardest part is probably gathering up all the materials.

Here's what you need:

• A glass container with or without a lid (I have used vases, anchor hocking heritage hill jars, and candy containers, but I have seen them in those clear glass flour or pasta containers with the metal snap and fish tanks).
• The lid will help keep moisture in and literally create a mini ecosystem, you also will not have to water your terrarium as much.
• Gravel (another option is marbles or glass rocks)
• Activated Charcoal
• Potting Soil
• Plants

Some optional items are:

• Moss
• Decorations 

When picking out your plants keep in mind 4 things:

1. The size of the container that you got
2. The size the plants will grow to
3. The amount of water the plants need
   - Try to get plants with similar water needs, I like succulents because they don't need a lot of water and if you forget about your terrarium for a long time most of your plants should still be okay
4. The decor you will be adding to your terrarium
   -You don't want to have too big of plants and your tiny decorations get lost in the plants and vice versa, you don't want your decor to overshadow your plants, unless of course you like it like that. 

 Ok on to the actual creation of the terrarium.

1. Place the gravel in at least a 1 inch layer in the base of the container (this will give the water a place to drain to).
2. Layer on top of the gravel a quarter of an inch of activated charcoal ( to help with the water drainage and to keep the soil from seeping into the gravel layer).
3. At this point I like to take my plants out of the containers they came in and place them where I want them to go in order to make sure that they will fit and I like the way that they look.
4. Fill the soil in between your plants on top of the charcoal (the amount will vary based on the type of plants you pick and the size of the container, try not to disturb the charcoal and gravel layers).
5. Water your plants with just a little bit of water to see where the soil sinks down and fill in with more soil.

 You are basically done with your terrarium

• Add moss around the base of your plants to give it a more wild look or instead of moss you can use some glass stones
• Add any decorations you like (I have made some tiny mushrooms to hide in the moss before, it gives it a nice little forest look).

Enjoy!

Domesticity

Becoming a mom has changed several things about me and how I perceive myself. I never used to think of my self as domestic... it was almost a bad word in my mind I thought of my self as a wild and crazy independent person! But now I see domesticity in a totally different light. Domesticity means literally home or family life. I have a home! and a family! I guess that makes me domestic. Believe me I am no Susie Homemaker, but I have started doing some out of character things. Like cleaning and not just cause we're expecting guests, but just because, although I'm sure I'm still not up to my husband's standards... I started a garden. Well sort of, I bought some herbs, cleared some dirt and put down compost, but haven't planted anything yet and I'm planning to plant vegetables and start composting. I, of course love caring for my daughter and husband. Also I've been cooking. Ok I used to cook, but before they needed to be easy and fast meals. Recently I have made Quiche and Lasagna and Black Bean Soup (with several ingredients, not as easy as it sounds. I swear there was a lot of soaking and cooking and chopping involved). Check out my tumblr for more photos of my yummy adventures! West Coast Crafty Tumblr

Tumblr

Check out my Tumblr! It is pretty neat and makes for easy posting of super neat stuff!

http://westcoastcrafty.tumblr.com/

Enjoy this great picture of two of my creations, a knit sweater and my daughter, the latter of which is the greatest!

Combo Blog

I have decided to combine all of my blogs. I've imported them all to this blog so you may notice there are suddenly a lot more posts. I'm hoping this will inspire me to write more and get rid of any excuses I may have for not writing. Stay tuned!