Book Sale Finds!

I've mentioned before that I love a great bargain....  (AKA I'm cheap!) 

So when I hear gently used at good prices I get excited! 

Yesterday we went to a GIANT book sale in aid of our local Canadian Federation of University Women group!

They hold this every year (this is our second year going!)  We got so many great books and help raise money for scholarships for women to go to college! (In the word of Charlie..... WINNING!)

I know I've said before I'm not a reader but my whole family is! And they are trying to convert me I think... plus I do read cook books... as a matter of fact I love old 60's, 70's and 80's cookbooks... It's almost a sickness! And you'd be amazed how many cookbooks one can accumulate if they try...

So here is my haul!

They have a section where you can fill a bag for $2! 

Here's our bag! 

(we paid $4 because I felt like we had stuffed 2 bags worth of books into 1 reusable bag...)

there are all kinds of books in this section from self help to crafts to religion and fiction...you name it it's there!

Once I opened up the bag and saw what we got I was shocked! 

 Here's what I got from the craft/cooking section!

And a few that daddy and Delaney picked out! (can you tell who was holding the bag...)

Here are  few of the ones I am  most excited about!

A reprint of a dress making book from the 1870's (If nothing else I will be framing a few of these pages and putting them on the walls!)

Sheet Music.... already have a few crafts in mind to use these for!

Great Cooking Ideas.... They weren't kidding when they named this baby, this book is huge! And there is a recipe on every page! (sure to show up on future Make it Monday's!)

This one I am flipping out over still! James Beard! YES PLEASE!

And this one I got to try some things for Miss Delaney! I may have to YouTube some video's on how to do needle point as I have no freaking idea how I mean experience... 

We also got a  few other books in the regular sections of the sale... 

A few for Delaney... a couple for Daddy and a couple for me to try... My Sister is a good influence what can I say... (she secretly wishes me a reader I think)

Daddy also nabbed us a World Atlas...

It's a bit out of date... as in it still has the USSR... but hey it suits our needs... 

and Delaney is already in love with it!

All in all a great day, we got so many great books, had so much fun looking through everything over and over and everyone went home with a few new reads at super cheap prices! (not to mention that we helped raise money for the Canadian Federation of University Women Scholarship Fund!) 

Have you picked up anything at a great price and gotten a little too excited about it lately? Any great books you've picked up or any great crafty reads?? Please Share it in the comments I'd love to hear all about it!

Photo Friday! Our day with Auntie!

As I mentioned earlier this week we spent the better part of the day this past Saturday with my sister...  and we had the most amazing day! 

We played and acted foolish, we went to a great craft sale (where I spotted a lot of lovely hand-spun yarn) we shopped and walked down town had a treat at Tim Hortons and then went back to her house for a supper that I didn't make (you have no idea how great that was), we sat on the porch swing in the SUN (that was great too) and had a grand old time just relaxing! 

But I did snap a few really nice photos that I thought I would share for this Photo Friday!

A look at my favorite part of downtown! (if you look close you can see the purple building... We used to live on the top floor of that building...)

These two statues are part of a water front park, they are a Labrador Retriever and a Newfoundland dog...

Not a bad view from your own "back yard" hey...

And finally one of Me and Delaney... (Can you believe that this is the first picture of me that I have posted... other than wedding photos)

We had so much fun!

Happy Friday! Hope you snap some great photos of you and your family hanging out!

Tell the Truth Thursday! 2 for 1!

Yup you read right... 

Today you get two confessions for the price of one!

The first is obvious if you scroll down just a little and see the videos that are part of this post!

I AM A GLEEK!

The second isn't quite as obvious....

If you watch Glee you will know that this weeks episode was called "Born this Way" and of course they sang the new Lady Gaga song... and I actually like their version better than GAGA's...

And it was all about the kids in the Glee Club accepting who they are and what they are... 

So each had to make a shirt with a word or phrase that tells something they are ashamed of or something they can't change...

They put things like "Butt Chin", "Nose" or "OCD" and it got me thinking what would I put on "my" shirt?

There are a few things that popped into my mind...

but the one that stuck out was 

CURLY HAIR!

Yup I have naturally curly hair and as nice as it is, I hated it for a long, long, long time! And even now some days I would tear it all out if I thought that it would grow back straight. When I was younger I was called so many names and made fun of so much because of my hair... so much that I would do anything to straighten it... I can't count the burns I got from our iron, or from any of the countless hair appliances I have owned.

Sounds silly right or at least I think it sounds silly. I mean really when does hair make the lady? 

Yes I have learned to embrace it, well deal with it at least but at many times even now it's just easier to forget about it and pretend that it doesn't matter, even if it does...

And most days it does, I do care how I look (show me a woman who says she doesn't and you've just showed me a liar)  but some days its just not worth the hassle of caring so much that I have to fuss and deal with it. 

So truth is that I have curly hair and it bothers me sometimes and it is a pain in the butt sometimes but it was how I was born and it makes me... well me...  

So what would your shirt say? Leave it in comments... I'd love to know!

And because I am a true GLEEK I have to add my favorite song from this weeks episode...

Somewhere only we know- as sung by the Warblers...

A Happy Late Easter!

Today I wanted to share a fun crafty post. 

I wanted to post a knitting project... But it isn't finished, with Easter and all of its activities I got slightly delayed with the craft projects. 

So I thought I would share our Easter with you because it was as is every holiday in our family VERY busy and very fun filled! (Be fair warned that this is a post filled with Pictures of Delaney, and its blocked full of every move we made for two days Easter fun)

We started off with an Easter Party at my Dad's work. She had such a good time! They did an egg hunt, Dyed eggs and even had a Mickey Mouse Movie (needless to say she did a whole lot of watching Mickey Mouse and not a whole lot else... ) She had a great time during the egg hunt part but not so much with the Easter Bunny himself. 

At one point the "man in charge" said "Ok lets all get our photos with the Easter Bunny before he leaves!" and Delaney screamed out "NOOOOOOO I don't want my picture with the Bunny!"

But other wise she had fun!

She enjoyed some lovely snacks!

And She looked adorable!

Saturday afternoon we spent with Auntie and we had a great time... 

(more on that later in the week!)

Then on Saturday night she decided that she needed to leave the Easter Bunny a snack however she thought that he would like "Just cold water" to drink and a rice crispy square for his snack! 

Then on Sunday she received this note with her Easter Basket!

It reads 

"Dear Delaney, Thank you for my snack! I hope you enjoy your Egg Hunt and have a wonderful Easter! Love the Easter Bunny!"

She was so excited!

Then commenced the Egg Hunt!

She found all 37 eggs and had a great time! Daddy may have told her where to look helped her find some of them... and then it was breakfast with Papa (Robyn's dad) and the off to Nanny and Poppy's house (my Mom and Step-dad) with Auntie for Easter lunch! 

She loves to wear a pretty dress...

We had a lovely day and when we got home we put on our bunny ears had some chocolate eggs and watched movies! 

All in all a day to remember!

How was your Easter? Did you get to spend it eating Easter eggs and wearing bunny ears? What ever you did I hope you had an amazing day with your family!

My Idea Binder...

For a long time I have been collecting cute ideas and little notes on things I'd like to make but usually they are on little slips of paper or on random pages in some notebook or another... and they inevitably get lost... (have I mentioned that although I am a type A person I'm very unorganized)

Well a while ago I started working on my "Idea Binder" to try to keep it all together, however I hated how it turned out...

I tried to do a modge podge type of covering but I really hated it!

So instead I figured I would cover it with fabric...

I grabbed a pillow case that I had picked up at Dollerama to try to make a pillow case dress for Delaney and well just never got around to. 

I cut it down the seams and then cut it down to fit my binder. 

I sewed a button on the front of the fabric so I could keep it closed. 

Then I glued the fabric with hot glue to the corners first... 

(I trimmed the corners so it would help them lay flat once the rest of the fabric was glued down)

Then I glued down the rest of the edges, pulling tight at each edge to be sure that it wasn't bunched or buckled on the other side. 

(while I did this I hot glued a piece of ribbon to the opposite side of the button so I could wind it around the button to keep it closed but you could also put in a piece of stretchy cord in a loop so it just goes around the button once and keeps it tighter)

I then took some of the left over fabric and sewed two layers of it together on the edges to create a pocket.

I then hot glued the edges of each of those pieces to a piece of cardboard and hot glued them in place on either side of the three center rings.

Then it came to dividing the sections...

I made these dividers the first time I tried to pretty up the binder.

They were made by cutting down a few pieces of cardboard and modge podging some scrapbook paper, tissue paper and tissue to the cardboard. (the Zebra is my favorite! Not only because its ZEBRA but also because it was made from the tissues I had on our wedding day!)

Then I wanted a few sub-dividers as I wanted to be able to use one section only for blog ideas...

I cut down a Pizza box into the shapes I wanted... 

Then I covered them with scrap booking paper of my choice, I just used a regular glue stick to glue the paper to the dividers then cut the paper down and punched the holes and popped them into the binder.

And after all that it was done!

I love the pattern on the fabric and it does exactly what I need... 

Keeps all my notes in one place!

I've been outed...

Ive been pulled out of the blogging closet... Yup Ive been outed...

I should have known better and I should have watched my step but maybe just a little I was like a cheater leaving little digital links to my crime...

Last Friday I returned home from a play-date with friends of ours, only to call my mom just to say Hi and were home now... to get the reply of...

"I learned something today" to which I said "Whats that?" Mom in her most Motherly voice "Um that you have a BLOG" 

Long story short months ago my sister turned me onto The Shabby Nest a great blog who in my sisters words has one of the best linky parties out there... and it is one of the places that I have been linking up to... not thinking that my sister would be looking there at her linky party every week... so when she saw my "M" from my "Mrs. M" post she went for a look thinking that maybe this was the blog I had gotten my idea from when low and behold here was my little corner of the blogging world. 

Why didn't I tell them that I started to blog? Well I was a little embarrassed I think, and I wanted to get a bit of practice under my belt. Maybe I felt like I wasn't good enough of a blogger (granted I have only been blogging since February 4th) to tell the world yet. Maybe I just didn't know how to tell them... Either way I was keeping it a bit of a secret, and there are still plenty of people who don't know. 

But in all truth and fairness I think this may have been the best way for them to find out... I didn't even know that they were looking at the blog until after they had been through the whole thing (so there was no awkward pause of are they reading it, what do they think, when will they look and what will they say) and they had only the loveliest things to say about it! It was like having the band-aid ripped off when you didn't even know that there was a band-aid in the first place...

So now I welcome both my Mom and my Sister as I am sure they are reading and still laughing at the fact that I was too chicken to tell them that I had started a blog to begin with...

Make it Monday! Easy Chicken Casserole!

Last week while looking around at the blog hops and linky parties I came across this recipe.... over at On Sutton Place as soon as I saw it I thought..... 

hmmmmm that looks good and hey I have all that stuff... 

and so off I went to the cupboard and started to make it for supper... 

That's when I realized that no I didn't have everything for it....

But the Chicken was in the oven almost cooked and so I thought substitute today make it right soon...

Here is the actual recipe... (with my two cents added in)

Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil.
Cook about 8 oz. of egg noodles according to package directions.

when cooked drain noodles.

While noodles are cooking mix the following:
1 can cream of celery soup
3/4 can milk
(it works best to use a whisk)
3 heaping Tablespoons Light Mayo 

(I recommend mixing in your round casserole dish to save on the clean up)
1 pkg. Steam fresh Singles Peas (or any frozen peas) 

Shred two chicken breasts 

(original recipe uses rotisserie chicken from the supermarket... major time saver!)
add everything into the soup, milk, and mayo mix.
Bake at 350 for 30 - 40 minutes 

until it's toasty brown and bubbly around the edges

 

Here is how Ann's looks...

Now for my substitutions.... 

I only had no cream of celery soup, no peas, and no egg noodles... so I used cream of mushroom soup, corn, and regular pasta...

Here's mine...

 

(looks a little light but that's just the camera lightening)

 

I was a little worried that I had changed it to much but let me tell ya... It was good! 

That's an understatement it was great!

Delaney wasn't really a huge fan but she isn't one for foods that are all cooked together, or that all taste the same. 

All in all I will be making this again and I can't wait to see if the taste changes much with the celery soup rather than the mushroom... 

I will keep you posted... 

Give it a try, your family might just love it! Do you have any simple suppers you'd like to share? Let me know in the comments and you might just see it here on a future make it Monday!

Ps. if you have a min stop over and see Ann at On Sutton Place she has some great posts over there on decor and some great recipes too! And you can even visit Ann's Attic where she has some great gently used home decor items for sale...