Happy Mother's Day!

Yes, I know it's not Mother's Day! But we can still celebrate our Mom's, celebrate being a Mom, celebrate someone that you miss and the wonderful times you had together!

The first time I heard the song "The Promise" by Tracy Chapman, I was in spin class. I teared up just a bit, but since I was in spin class, it wasn't a full fledged cry! All I could think about was my Mom; my best friend.

Today, in spin class, the instructor remembered I liked the song and played it again. Some songs just seem like my Mom wrote them to make me feel better. She passed away in 1994 suddenly and my heart is still broken.

I had moved back here from Colorado in 1989, with my 5 year old daughter, after getting a divorce. Since that time we were the best of friends. She was a devoted Mom and Grandmother. She would pick up my daughter, Lindsey, everyday from school, and she would do fun things with her! Putt-putt golf, McDonalds, etc!

After I remarried in 1991 and proceeded to have two wonderful children (very close in age), my Mom continued to help in so many ways! She would come over everyday, exactly the same time, so I could pick up Lindsey at school and she would stay with the babies (Mark and Katherine who are now 18 and almost 17!).

We were always laughing about something. For example, she brought her food processor over for me and gave me demonstration of how to use it. So there she goes putting carrot sticks in the food processor, and she forgot one little step, a cover! We had carrot pieces flying all over the kitchen (don't worry, the kids weren't in the room), we were screaming and laughing at the same time!

My Mom was a devoted Mom to five children. She didn't really have a role model for being a good Mom, but amazingly she was!

She was always a lady, and I see my oldest daughter, Lindsey, in her so much!

What I'm trying to say is, appreciate the time you have with your Mom, your kids, the people you love and treasure them!

And know the ones that are not here with us, are still in our heart. That helps me.

Check out the song "The Promise" by Tracy Chapman, I think it will make you think of someone in your life.

Take care!

Jen

Play With Your Food

My husband Bob and I are "foodies"! I usually have the food channel on most of the day. We both love to cook. We both love to eat!

Tonight I made a salmon dinner. This could easily be made with chicken, tilapia, or without any meat or fish at all and just use pasta!

I started by adding McCormicks Season All Crusting Blend to both sides of the salmon. I added a little butter and olive oil to the pan and put the heat up pretty high to sear the salmon on both sides (for about 3 minutes on each side).

I then wrapped the salmon in foil and put it in the oven at 380 for about 20-25 minutes.

In the meantime, I dug through the refrigerator to see what I had available. I had zucchini, squash, yellow, orange, and red pepper, red onion, white onion, scallions, carrots...and more I can't think of right now, but it doesn't matter, you get the idea~ I sauteed that in a little olive oil and butter and then added some fresh mushrooms, a small amount of chicken broth (you could use vegetable broth), a little cream (yeah-I love cream!), a pinch of nutmeg, salt, pepper, and some italian seasoning...and to kick it up a notch, a tablespoon or two of salsa! Cook that on low.

For under $6.00 for the salmon, I would say it's a pretty good deal! We went out to dinner last night at one of our favorite restaurants, "Salmon Daves" and I ordered salmon (which was delicious, as always) and our bill was about $90.

Cooking is fun~~eating is fun too! My pictures aren't the greatest-I love my camera, but the flash at night just isn't that greatest, but believe, it was delicous!

So check out what you have in your refrigerator and play with your food!

Oh...I saved a little bit of the salmon because I promised my adorable elderly neighbor/friend Rea's cats that I would bring them a surprise! Today when I visited Rea they actually came out to see me-and that's a first!

Jen

Three Posts in One Day

Are you sick of me yet!?

It's been an exciting day for me! Starting with my first post about crafts!

I then had to add a new post about my feature in Brides Magazine!

I just finished watching Greys Anatomy and it made me think again (wow-that's a lot of thinking for me!).

I'm not a surgeon, not a nurse, I don't even have a degree-in anything! All I ever knew is that I wanted to be a Mom! I just always knew that is what I wanted to be! Even when I was younger I would pretend to be a teacher for my youngest siblings, Susan and Steven.

So...I'm not a doctor, not a nurse...and I do not have a degree.

But...I am a Mom! I have 3 fantastic kids!! Lindsey is 26 and beautiful and we are the best of friends! Mark turned 18 in December and he is just such a handsome guy with a fantastic sense of humor (and great at those video games)...and then there is Katherine! She's always been unique...amazingly smart-16th in her class in high school, but what I love most about her is that she still can be "ditzy" and I mean that in the most endearing way! She is smart but she still knows how to enjoy life and laugh (and she is so darn cute!)!

Again, I have digressed...that is just what I do..this 3rd post is meant to be about enjoying life..the little things! It doesn't have to be just about the huge milestones. It's about the exciting little things that happen that make up your life.

I'm not saying it's always good and "sunshine happy"! But it is about appreciating the little things that makes everything better!

Today was a day of happy little things happening for me and I'm appreciating it!

Appreciate what you have-gratitude is an amazing thing!

Jen

I'm so excited!

Two blogs in one day!! Be sure to check out Jens craft projects-they don't come around too often!

The reason for this 2nd blog is because I just received, in the mail, two Bride's Magazines that my milk glass shop is featured in! They did a great write up on several Etsy shops and mine was one of them! If you read my blog a few posts ago it explains a little more about it.

Thanks so much to Brides Magazine for sending out two of the magazines that my milk glass candlesticks are featured in! The two they sent me are South Jersey and Washington. They should be in all of the Brides Magazines soon! I'm waiting to see the Connecticut one that features my china from jenscloset!

I'm famous (okay, maybe I'm getting carried away!)!

Be sure to check out http://www.brides.com/

Jen

Jen's Craft Day

Yeah right..."Jen's Craft Day"!! Once in awhile I attempt some sort of crafty project. They usually don't turn out too great, but I still have fun trying!

I was watching Martha Stewart yesterday and she had this lady on who makes "scrap boxes" (I can't remember if that's exactly what she called them but I'm sure if you went to marthastewart.com the info would be there. Anyways...this lady puts photos and trinkets from events in her daughter's lives (whether it was just a day at the beach or their first ballet class)into shadow boxes! She has always been a scrapbooker, but with the bulkier things she came up with this great idea!

So that got me thinking (wow-I had a lightbulb moment!)! I have a box full of cool vintage sewing supplies and I've been wanting to do something with them. So I went up to Pat Catans and bought a smaller shadow box to start. I decided if I really like this I can hot glue everything on, but for this, I just scotch taped everything on! It has cute white ric-rac, a thimble, an empty thread spool, and great buttons...and I threw in some non-vintage flowers for an extra touch!

The idea for the hanky table runner came from one of my favorite antique shops. They had taken three handkerchiefs and just used fabric glue to attach them...so that's what I did! You could easily just sew them together, and it would probably be a better idea to sew them, as you can see a slight glue residue on these.

Oh--and the glass dome shown was a Christmas gift from my sister, Susan! It was cute, but I was thinking "what the heck can I do with this?!"...maybe put a tiny cake in it!! So I decided to make it into a Valentine decoration and just added some silk flowers, vintage pearls, a vintage brooch, and some vintage lace! I can change it out for each holiday!

So that's it-that's all you'll get from me as far as crafts!

Take Care!

Jen

Now What Am I Supposed To Do!?

I've been up for at least an 1 1/2 hours; it is now 8:10 am. The first thing I do in the morning is turn on my computer and get my coffee. I check my emails and my Etsy shops and then, of course, go right to twitter to say good morning to my twitter friends.

Well, this morning that awful fail whale appeared-he looks so cute, but he's so evil. I tried not to panic. I did some laundry. I googled twitter to see if there was info on the outage. I watched a video of Conan O'Brien going through the same problem when twitter was down and how he handled it (not well).

I kept checking and that evil whale was still there.

So I went to athleta.com and ordered cute workout clothes.

Then I checked twitter again-yes! I got in! I left a comment about the awful twitter-less morning. But then...what? No....this can't be happening to me....the evil whale appeared again.

So I decided if I can't get on twitter I can at least blog about it and maybe by the time I vent about my twitter-less life the evil whale will be gone.

So here goes--wish me luck. If this doesn't work I might have to do other things around here; it's going to be awful, awful, just awful. Please do not fail me twitter, I do no want to be forced to clean or some other dramatic thing like that.

Jen

Soup's On!

19 degrees here! What better time to make a delicious hot and hearty soup! I love making soup! It's different everytime! I take whatever I have and use my imagination!

Here's the one I created today:

I sauteed lots of chopped celery and onion in olive oil and butter (I usually add carrots and maybe red, orange, or yellow pepper, but didn't have those today). This is the way I start all soups. Some soups, such as lentil soup, can start with cooking up some bacon.

Now is the time I go through my refrigerator and pantry and start getting creative!

Here's what I found today!

Oh-my favorite thing! RoTel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies! I add one can of that to just about everything! If you like a little heat-then try it! If you do not want the heat, just add a can of diced tomatoes!

Can of small white beans

Hearts of palm (I had opened a can of these a few days ago to put on my salad, so I decided to add them-they're crunchy and kind of tangy) -my husband asked me what "hearts of palm" were-and I couldn't answer him!

A little bit of fresh cilantro

Sauteed mushrooms (sauteed because they were kind of getting old and it's a good way to bring them back to life and not waste them)

Chopped scallions

Garlic salt, pepper, and italian seasoning

Mini penne pasta and some whole wheat bow pasta

3 or more cans of chicken broth

Let that cook until the pasta is tender....and in the meantime, slice up some french bread, butter the slices, sprinkle with garlic salt, italian seasoning and some mozzerella cheese-cook at 350 for about 5 minutes then broil on low for 1 minute.

At the end I add some heavy cream to my soup-it gives it a richness!

So get creative-don't use my recipe word for word-see what you have and have fun! There are ways to make this a bit more low calorie too-like not adding the yummy cream that I add!

Here's a secret that I use when I think I still am hungry and tempted to eat more--I eat one little piece of chocolate-Godiva chocolate is one of my favorites! That and some hot black coffee-and I'm good to go!

Keep warm everyone! oh-and if you love that cute vintage Mikasa bowl-check out my shop www.jenscloset.etsy.com - I will soon be listing a set of these!

Jen

ps-make enough to share with others-I will be giving some to my precious neighbor, Rea, and my mother-in-law too!!

Happy New Year 2010!!

Wow-can you believe it!!? 2010!?

Hope the new year has started out fantastic for you!

I'm going to try to add pics to this post of magazines that both of my shops have been featured in!! I'm so excited! I've known about this for awhile, but didn't know when they'd start running my stuff!

One is a wedding feature in Connecticut Brides Magazine. I had shipped some of my pretty china out to Connecticut for a photo shoot, so that is very exciting!

At about the same time, the Etsy press had contacted me to let me know that Brides Magazine wanted to do a photo shoot with a pair of my milk glass candleholders (which I actually just sold)! So, of course, I shipped them out right away to New York City! So...those are, so far, featured in several of the local Brides Magazines, and I think they'll be showing up in more of the local Brides Magazines!

I was just contacted again by the Etsy press for another possible feature...I'll keep you up to date with that as I learn more!

Yes-my vintage items travel more than I do and I consider them to by supermodels! (They are quite finicky now-they've let this whole thing go to their heads!)

I wanted to thank Allison Beaon, the Editorial Assistant at Brides.com and Brides Local Magazine! She's been great at keeping me informed on what's going on!

Be sure to check out the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of "Brides Local Magazines" and "Brides Connecticut"!

Also-thanks to Candice Dowling of Jubilee Catering in Connecticut! We found each other throught Twitter!

Happy New Year everyone!!

I wish you the best!!

Jen

p.s.-need help figuring out how to get the pdf files that Allison set me, with my features, so that will hopefully be coming soon! In the meantime--enjoy my pretty milk glass cake stand!! PINK!