Minestrone Soup

Well...I think Winter is very close! We had our first blanket of snow today! Ahhh, that means it's soup weather!  I made this really wonderful soup for dinner tonight, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Minestrone Soup

1 lb Italian Sweet or Hot Sausage meat (NO Casing)

1 lb dry pasta, any kind you like (cooked and drained)

1 bag frozen chopped spinach

1 medium yellow onion, diced or chopped, depending on how large you like the pieces

2 Tablespoons (yes, TABLE spoons!) garlic

Olive oil for cooking sausage

1 can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)

1 can cannellini beans (drained and rinsed)

1 can (I used a 28 oz can) diced tomatoes (juice too!)

2 cartons NO MSG Chicken Broth

Salt, pepper, basil, parsley to taste (may not need to add salt)

Brown sausage in olive oil, add onions and garlic and saute for about 5 min. Add  beans, tomatoes, broth, and spinach, set heat to medium/low and cook about 30 min, till broth is hot.  Add cooked pasta, season to taste and serve.

I think this will rival any restaurant minestrone!

Holiday FUN!

I just signed up for a Handmade Gift Exchange through Craftaholics Anonymous! Oh what FUN that will be!  If you'd like to do the same, you should be able to get to her blog from mine, as I'm a follower of that blog!

I'm so anxious to get to know the person I'm making a gift for! Neat way to make a new crafting friend!

Pinterest, and my nail art.

Here's my "official" halloween nail art. Thanks to Nail Guy, who always does an awesome job!
So, who is on "Pinterest"?  WOW is that an awesome website! I have french tips right now, and rarely have full color coverage on my nails, but after finding some really great nail art on Pinterest I'm going to start having Nail Guy (not his real name, that's his Facebook name) try some of the cool techniques that I've seen. Probably not real interesting to some, but I LOVE IT!

Fall fun

Ooooh, a lot going on today!  Hubby and I got out early this morning and spent about 3 hours burning a lot of those darned weeds I talked about. Lots done, but still lots to burn. It's so relaxing to sit outside with a mug of hot coffee. I absolutely LOVE the smell of burning season!
Have a crock pot of vegi beef soup on, waiting for some friends to arrive for lunch, crafting and football! We're making "paper bag books". This is a GREAT project for recycling all kinds of stuff! Cardboard is the base for this book, and the top of wine sized paper bags are the pages! I cut up all kinds of boxes for todays project! I will be sure to post pictures! Another thing we'll be making are some "scrunchy" flowers, using pages from discarded text books. FUN STUFF!!!

Fall field trip!

Tomorrow we head to Hood River, Oregon for our annual apple picking trip! This is one of my favorite things to do. We try to have the entire family participate, but as I'm sure many of you know, that is NOT always possible. With our adult children now married with families it's sometimes hard to coordinate it all. We're just thankful for whoever is able to make it! I hope to come home with bunches of apples, and bunches of pictures too!

Fun fingernails

OPI is having a "halloween nails" kind of contest. I can't enter because this design wasn't done by ME. I asked if I could enter anyway just to show what an AWESOME job my "Nail Guy" does. FABULOUS, isn't it?

Scrapbooking and card making

I love scrapbooking.  Mostly I make cards, but I've finally started sorting all those years' of photo's in that drawer that feels like a bottomless pit of pictures. I was so bad at dating them! I sure love this digital age we're in!
Anyway, below is a really quick but very pretty card that I love to make. The following photos show the "unfinished" card, with just the "crinkle flower" on it. You can finish it up any way you like.

The first photo is of the card, with two flowers stamped on the same patterned paper and laying flat on the card.  (This paper is one of my favorites, but can I remember where I got it? NO.) I've got to keep my eye out for more of this beautiful paper!

 Next photo shows the flowers, after being "crinkled" yes, you wad the flowers up into a tiny, ugly ball, then very carefully un-crinkle it. I usually re-crinkle each section and kind of shape it. It's attached to the card with ZOTS brand adhesive dots.

Here's a close up of the flower.

 One more picture of the finished flower.  You could do lots to "pretty up" that flower even more! I have a bottle of clear glitter glue that I brush on the flower pedals, I have also attached a pretty jewel in the middle.

Well, hope you have a chance to try this, it's so easy and makes a beautiful card!